Fall 17 Graduate Drawing/Painting ARTS 6033/6133

I just had a studio visit with Daniel Feinberg and I thought I would discuss some of what came up. The most thought provoking comment that was made is that maybe I am making too much work. That took me back a little. When I look at the level of production of my peers I can hardly imagine slowing down my own. His point was that with all of the requirements that are associated with grad school, devoting time to thinking about a work or concept for a long enough period of time and parsing out the issues, implications, and thoughts behind it sometimes gets pushed to the background because there is very little physically to show for it. I'm at the point this semester that I come to every semester where I have to decide what items I am going to neglect because the numbers just don't add up. The thought of slowing down production among other things to devote time to quiet contemplation gives me a bit of anxiety.

Hopefully I can get this to work. Haha. So here is a gif from the videos I have been working on. On one hand I have the raw footage I have been experimenting on while splicing my distorted still images into the video, and on the other hand I have the Blended video meant to evoke more painterly gestures. It is this blended video that is the aesthetic I am trying to achieve in part. I had cut about 30 minutes of video that I have been stretching and condensing which has been problematic. I have been trying to get different scenes to play off one another but the encoding process can take a long time. While I may only be making one gesture with minor changes per encoding process. I have started to work with individual cuts to allow for more exploration per session. I'll try to get a video uploaded before our critique this evening.

politicians.  my dad was a good ole southern republican judge.   he used to enjoy watching this sitcom from the 80's called "Night Court" that showed a group of characters that worked with the main character, a guy who went by "Judge Harry."  he liked watching it over the news or The Peoples Court because he said that it showed a judge, behind the scenes, acting like a "real person."  Daddy would laugh a little when my Mama, or anyone for that matter, would get upset when the latest elected official would not follow through on a campaign promise, or get caught with his proverbial pants down somewhere, or just act like a plain old douche-bag who has come into some amount of power.  Daddy would say to me "Son, you can't get mad when a politician acts like exactly what they are...  a politician."  now my Dad was one of those politicians, and he made no bones about it.  he did try to balance out this with service to our town.  countless times...

Watching a name erode taking another form is strange, sad, distant. Sitting in class I have to retrain my body not to react to my old name. My head will jerk to the sound of the "Thom" hitting the back of the throat and the "as" slipping past the tongue. My new name is soft and comforting. "Hannah" says the friend. The paintings are weird. Still too new to absorb my feelings or comprehension for what they are or even what they're doing. One makes my skin crawl and the other makes me uncomfortable. Comfortable would be falling back into the folds of image, copying it as it reads. I haven't done enough to know what is finished or good. One looks "finished" but is only line work. I don't know what I want of these paintings. My work is about my home. The setting back home and the physical one in Fayetteville. While being between a transitioning body and a static relationship with my family I've yet to find comfortable ground. The ...

I met with the Saint Louis Artist Guild this weekend to plan a show for summer 2018. I was nervous about this meeting since I have no idea what my work will look like in a year and how thematically it will tie in with the other two individuals who will be a part of the show. However, I felt prepared in the questions I asked and through I would share them in case you are in a similar situation with a gallery.  Does the gallery’s insurance cover your artwork? How much? Are there any honorariums? Are there people on staff that can help with instillation? What are acceptable hanging devises? Can you hang work from the ceiling? What is the weight capacity of the walls? How much instillation time will we have? Are pedestals provided? What sizes do they have? Can you paint or draw directly on the walls? How large of work can be brought into the galleries through the doors? Are others included into the show? When will the show be? How long will the show be up? ...

This week for Contemporary Art History we had to read Hal Foster's  Return of the Real . I was struck by how well the material overlapped with current goals in my work. Thus far my work has very much fallen in line with the idea of the Screen - insulated from the Real, keeping things rooted in the Imaginary and Symbolic. I want to reverse that, to intentionally confront the Real. I find myself wondering if it's possible to plan such an encounter; is it possible to use Symbolic thinking to create such a visceral experience? How can I create "ruptures" in the Screen of my work? As usual, I don't have any answers for these questions, but I'm looking forward to seeing where experimentation will take me. 

What does it mean for my paintings to emphasize the frame? What does it mean for an object to break the frame? With things being cut-off in my paintings and my writing, I talk about how something happens outside of the frame. When I write a short story, I only focus on a highlight of a person’s life --it’s assumed that there’s a whole life there, and I want that for my paintings. I have a story that I want people to enjoy, but I think the right kind of viewer will. You have to really care. There are going to be nuggets that you can get from just the paintings, but more if you read the narrator’s intro, and more when you read the book. And also, there’s sometimes more info in the painting or set than in the short story. So there’s a give and take. But if it’s gathered that these are narratives about characters or households and people can enjoy the paintings as they are or make up a story of their own, I’m perfectly content in that, too. But how do I show that there’s more outsid...

+ Why does a painter paint an ordinary flower? Why a picture of an ordinary flower is a work of art? Why I am drawing the most ordinary flower in the world and I think it is art? or, why do I think I should draw an ordinary flower? + I was thinking, not only thinking but also I was feeling what I was thinking about. While I was thinking (and feeling), I was drawing, too. I cannot refute the idea that I was expressing my feelings by drawing. However, if it was only "expressing the emotions", so, crying is better than drawing. In other words, there is something more than that. I was expressing my emotions by drawing, but I was conscious and careful about how to draw, how to choose colors and how to challenge my old rules in the new drawing, simultaneously. In the end of the day, when eventually I finished the drawing, it was an ordinary picture. it has something in it, both flaw and perfection. + An ordinary flower. It is ordinary like life. Life is ordinar...

the gong show last night was amazing.   I have been looking at dissonance in my work a lot recently.  the idea of elements coming together in a way that were not originally intended is something that runs through my work.  I know that this is something that is a physical manifestation of my fascination with how this shows up in every day life.  tatsuyu nakatani is a Japanese sound artist and percussionist.  he has created his own instruments and techniques where he uses drums, sticks, gongs, cymbals, singing bowls, and all sorts of metal objects on which he uses hand made bows to create sound.  this goes right along with what has been going on in the studio where I choose music that is dissonant, seemingly non-sensical, and chaotic to influence my decision making process when I am working.  at first glance in life we look at the world and sometimes see chaos or similarities in pattern and movements.  at the same time, the amount of information com...

I have been welding plastic and it's been really, really, really difficult deciding on what shape I want to draw out and inflate the plastic as. I had a studio visit with Sean Morrissey the other day and he told me that I am not giving the plastic bags as much justice as I do with the touch and care I give my ceramic vessels. That was a really interesting way for me to think about how much thought and (as our readings have been telling us) how much uncertainty I have when thinking and executing these drawings through the soldering iron. What am I holding back on? What shapes am I trying to make and why? Another issue I am facing is the relationship between the ceramic vessels and the bags; why am I putting these bags inside the vessels, and are they entirely reliant on one another?

I'm making a pencil. Its going to be a really nice pencil made from a mixture of maple, walnut and mahogany. I discussed the idea with one of the faculty and the discussion became focused on value and rarity, which is certainly an aspect of the project but not necessarily what I am focusing on. The conversation caused me to write a little about the idea, and this is an excerpt from an email that I wrote about it. I'm definitely still working on the conceptual framework of this piece. My process tends to lean in a retroactive direction, discovering concept in the process of creating the work, which is probably a bit dicey when my work is so representational. While value and cost are certainly aspects that the work engages in, I think I am more interested in the personal relationship between the work and the investment of the creator. Time/hours of life spent in an effort to create something so immediately consumable that regardless of its appearance provides no better experie...

This week i meet with Marc Mitchell to go over the body of work I'm working on. I posted progress shots of the most current painting in progress. The canvas fabric is sewn together. Today I sewed together the next painting. I found the composition can be served by the channel created by the sewn line. It adds onto the effect of "pieced together." This piece seems to be more about personal placement within the home; my home. I feel this will only serve as a metaphor for disjointed gender. But in the context of a home, then traditional gender roles come into the forefront. That's not what this is about... This project is focused around my gender identity in and outside of a "living" space. Writing more about this will help me focus on what needs to happen for the works to be finished. Sharpie/Interior Latex First Layer of Paint More Paint

Thoughts for this week: - How can I juxtapose expressive/active/"painterly" application with more delicate/traditional handling within one image? I think the balance and contrast between them could make for a very interesting piece.  - What is it about my portraits that give off such a cold, unfeeling read? I want to nail down what qualities give that impression so I know how to use it later. There's certainly something about the smooth, thin handling of paint that feels very clinical, and the connection with older art historical periods that feels distanced, but I think there may be more to it than just those two elements.  - I need to continue researching glazing and different mediums, Galkyd is too thick and syrupy for what I need. I might give walnut oil or neo-megilp a try, maybe I should use ACF funds to order some. 

Coordinating Two Shows The first is with Chas, Nick, and myself. We hope to use digital fabrication and through collaboration create a series of three pieces. However the collaboration will not be face to face, we will be working disconnected from each other and the only form of communication will be three different files that are passed off to each other. The files will include Illustrator, Photoshop, and Rhino.  These files will be saved to a google drive and each person can access a file for 2 days before the files are rotated. The rules are very broad for this project in that each person has complete control of which ever file they posses. As Chase stated it is completely acceptable to "sabotage" another person's design.Through this process of adding and subtracting to each others designs every two days we hope to find a fluid connection or train of through. Other constraints we are working with for the show consist of transportation and funding. We are currently ...

Okay...organizing thoughts... I need to do so much painting this weekend. For Elizabeth has taken so much more time than I thought it would. For this weekend, I need to finish that painting, Start the large For Henry, and start a small painting --not sure which one I want, maybe one of the more simple ones would be nice, and begin figuring out the color palette for the painted set by taking photos and painting two-dimensionally. Short stories are being revised by an English person right now.. I need to take notes on my research, too, and begin a source sheet. I'm going to look at some example papers and at least begin laying out the format. I need to talk to Mike actually... Okay: 1) Look at past mfa papers (mike and owen) 2) Begin recording potential sources 3) Ask Mike for a visit to talk about directions for the paper..things that are relevant: -stories, narrative -short stories? -themes of dealing with reality, love, family, loss, trying to sustain an illusio...

I don't know I feel about Stopa's talk. Certainly I found it entertaining, I always enjoy when an artist talks art history, because I feel they give a different lineage of thoughts. I do love Dana Schutz and Neo Rauch and their rise certainly means narrative works are in good standing, but it's just not what interests me as an artist. But I think comes a problem when trying to rope the contemporary with the historical, and if we are allowed to be informal in these responses I'd like to add a link to a video essayist that I continue to come back to. https://youtu.be/ZAv5EKvRrco In this he proposes that we are currently detached from the academic narrative. With the help of the internet, all cultures now interact through a network. Simultaneously blending ideas across a spectrum and across the world. Anyone, for good or bad, can be a 'thought-leader' if they are persuasive enough. Fake news, etc. It seems that a lot of people effectively ignore the parts of hi...

What does it mean (for me) to replicate the computer error? This is one question I need to begin working around. In one instance I believe it has the ability to take this anywhere, anytime landscape and ground it in the contemporary moment. As I type this on my 'school' iPad riding in a car across Arkansas highways, my 1yo girl watches cartoons to soothe her frustrations. Driving past LED billboards, surfing the information highway on a literal highway. Secondly I think it is meant to refer back to the process in which the image was created. I am trying to work the organic landscape through this filter of the machine and then interpreted through my own muscle. So the product is the sum of these three components nature, machine, muscle. I have heard so often that our phones distract us from the beauty around us. (Mostly from my mother and grandmother.) I feel like I have found the opposite. In my practice, as I said before, I am always taking photos of the landscape around...

I have had somewhat of a breakthrough in the studio this week. Thinking on how gender comes through as a personification of sex, can there be a full understanding of someone’s sex from the implied gender. Taking collaged images of interior spaces, I worked on designing spaces that read as “whole” at a glance. I think the interior spaces are ideal for my search for this idea of gender. Design, arranged, angular, lived in: words that surround a space for a body to live in. The image below will be painted on a 5’x6’ canvas. The canvas was sewn together from scraps in the studio. I think the idea of stitching the body of a piece can play into the overall read. I’ll use a projector to help trace this image onto the canvas. My only concern is the size being big… But the possibility for abstraction and play will help move the piece along as a whole.