Indeterminate Forms
collage (altered Polaroid photo, fragments from old books, dress pattern, and inkjet print on tissue paper)
8 3/4 x 11 1/2 inches
Category: Art
Sunrise and Sunset and a Brand New Year
Sunset, Owen County, Indiana
Sunrise, Owen County, Indiana
I mentioned that I’d given my mom my SLR? Well, she told me a few weeks ago that I’d left film in the camera, and that there were a couple of pictures on it of either sunrises or sunsets. When I was there over Festivus, I had her dig them out for me. I’m glad I did! The sunset photo is one of best I’ve ever taken. My scanner is in awful shape–it’s making unhealthy grinding noises and is scattering white specks across everything–so this is not the best scan, but it’s not too bad. The frosty winter sunrise photo turned out kind of nicely, too, I think. I don’t remember taking either of them, which shows what sort of Swiss cheese my brain is made of.
Below: This is one my mom took. While I was on the phone with her one evening, she said there were some weird cloud formations. I told her to get the hell outside and take some pictures (duh!), which she did. We’d had the same storm system earlier in the day, complete with mammatus, but my photos didn’t turn out anywhere as well as hers did. (That line along the left is an electric line, and the dark section at the bottom right is the eaves of her house.)
Mammatus clouds, Muncie, Indiana
And now for a couple of mindless doodles. We’ve had a barrage of staff meetings and training sessions over the past couple of months, in preparation for a major upgrade to our cataloging software. I’m not good with meetings and training sessions. They bore my brain into the danger zone for implodiation. So, I doodle. I don’t care if it makes it seem like I’m not paying attention. I am. I just need to keep my hands busy or my brain will atrophy.
Staff Meeting Doodle
Staff Meeting Doodle
The obligatory New Year resolutions:
I haven’t got a long list of resolutions, because I don’t tend to keep them. However, I’m going to make a concerted effort to try to do some art every day. I’m also going to try to eat more greens and drink less caffeine. Not killing Mr. Upstairs or beating the Bumpuses upside their heads with their dog’s tie-out stake are on the list, too, but alas, they aren’t my first priorities. I may spend 2007 in jail, if my neighbors don’t stop being assberets.
New Journal Pages
Not
collage (raffle tickets, sand paper, and dictionary page) with brass brads
9 3/4 x 14 1/2 inches
Articulation and Attachment
collage (altered Polaroid, poplar tree leaf, and fragment from anatomy text) with photo corners
9 3/4 x 14 1/2 inches
Open Here
Composition Book Journal
collage (raffle tickets, paper cut-out, glassine, and veil) with acrylic paint
9 3/4 x 14 1/2 inches, 26 December 2006
Holiday Craft Ideas
If you’re looking for a fun holiday themed craft idea (or a non-holiday themed craft idea, for that matter), hie thee thither.
Also, in keeping with the holiday theme, Going Jesus presents these homages to sublime tackiness:
Dream Anatomy
Ontleding des menschelyken lichaams…, Amsterdam, 1690. Copperplate engraving with etching. National Library of Medicine.
Govard Bidloo (1649-1713) [anatomist]
GĂ©rard de Lairesse (1640-1711) [artist]
In a discussion elsewhere, the subject of collecting and drawing bones came up. One person thought it was “really weird” to stop and draw/photograph roadkill, but sometimes that’s the best (or only!) way to get a good look at some animals. This sort of thing is nothing new. Artists and scientists have, for hundreds of years, been observing and rendering the anatomy of humans and animals. As I was Googling for examples, I came across this exquisite on-line exhibition from the U.S. National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health: Dream Anatomy.
The Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus, Birmingham, 1774. Copperplate engraving. National Library of Medicine.
William Hunter (1718-1783) [anatomist]
Jan van Riemsdyk (fl. 1750-1788) [artist]
Ugly Ducklings
I don’t know if it’s true for everyone, but it seems like all of my paintings go through an ugly duckling phase. Some ducklings are uglier than others, and some paintings have multiple ducklings, but at some point in the process of every piece, I want to burn it, tear it into tiny pieces, or paint over it. I had a couple of those moments last night, while working on the new painting (I think it’s a painting, anyway). Hopefully, it’ll look better in the light of day.
I started this one in acrylic, which is something I don’t usually do. I’ve added a few layers of water-soluble crayon, and smooshed things around and generally done everything I could to get my hands filthy dirty. That’s one thing I do like about acrylics, is that I can get my hands into the paint. That’s not a good idea with oils, because some of the pigments contain lead, which is absorbed through the skin. The down-side of finger painting with acrylics is that the polymer creates a skin on your, um, skin, and as each layer of paint dries and is covered by more paint, it starts to tighten and peel and, I think, feel extremely yucky. I have to stop periodically and remove all the paint from my palms and fingers, because it grosses me out.
I woke up this morning to find a Peeper frog on my kitchen window. They are just about the cutest things ever. Seriously. It was incredibly cool to be able to see his little white belly and his itty bitty suction cup feets. I tried to get pictures, but I don’t think they turned out. (There is a sound file available from the Indiana DNR. Imagine being surrounded by zillions of peeping Peepers, and you’ll have some idea of what early spring in the woods sounds like.)
Bad Advertising, FedEx Sucks, and Arting Update
You know that Progressive insurance commercial, that asks “If we’re this helpful while you’re shopping for insurance, imagine how helpful we’ll be when you need us.” That makes absolutely no sense, so I call bullshit. Any company is going to do whatever they can to make themselves look good to prospective customers. After they’ve hooked you, they don’t have much incentive to go out of their way to be helpful.
And while I’m being cranky, FedEx has climbed to the top of my corporate shit list. I ordered something on August 1. It was supposedly shipped on August 2. After a few days, I checked the tracking info, and found that the package had been placed on the truck, then apparently it warped into an alternate dimension. I figured it would show up eventually, and forgot about it. A couple of days ago, I received a postcard from FedEx–dated August 8!–stating that they needed additional delivery directions. Now, first, it took them a week to figure out they couldn’t find my place? I don’t think so. Second, why on earth did it take two weeks for the stupid postcard to get to me? That part of the problem may be the fault of the USPS. Delivery around these parts has gotten a bit random lately. However, FedEx should have provided better tracking info, and they should have informed me sooner that there was an issue. (And, no, they didn’t try to call, even though they had my phone number. If they had, it would’ve shown up on my caller ID. Hrmf!)
So, I called FedEx, as the postcard directed, and was told that the package has been returned to the vendor. I am not amused.
Now for an arting update: I’m working on a large-ish painting/assemblage something-or-other, using a wood panel as a support. I haven’t worked much on wood, so this should be entertaining. Whether that’s entertaining in the fun sense, or in the train-wreck sense, remains to be seen. If I don’t mention it again, you’ll know it did not end well.
In Art porn news, the new Dick Blick uber-catalog came today. Two copies of it, in fact, though one of them was, for some inexplicable reason, placed in my neighbor’s mailbox. I’d really like to know what the new mailwoman is smoking and/or drinking. I’ve taken to checking all three mailboxes, because my mail is regularly strewn between them. Serenity now!
(Photo: Baby circa 1920, another “yard sale box-o-junk” find)
New Mini Collages
What She Kept
mixed media: collage (brass beads, 35mm negative, yearbook photo, obituary photo, movie ticket stub, and fragment from 1854 patent book), drawing (India ink), and crackle glaze on 90lb Stonehenge paper
5 1/8 x 5 1/2 inches
Mask I
collage (dried leaf, fragment from dictionary, fortune, diary key, and brass brad) on 90lb Stonehenge paper dyed with instant coffee
3 1/2 x 2 1/2 inches
Mask II
collage (fragment from dictionary, altered Polaroid photo, and mirror) on 90lb Stonehenge paper dyed with instant coffee
3 1/2 x 2 1/2 inches
Little Boat
collage (fragments from dictionary colored with Portfolio water-soluble crayons) on 90lb Stonehenge paper dyed with instant coffee
3 3/4 x 5 1/2 inches
These are all rather on the bitty side. Most of my paintings are fairly large, so it’s weird to work on such a small scale. It feels more intimate, though, which makes for a nice change.
I’m Not Dead Yet
Coffee Book
5 3/4 x 5 1/2 inches, 12 sheets/24 pages
90lb cream Stonehenge paper stained with instant coffee, stab bound with ribbon and accented with aged brass brads
7 August 2006
I haven’t been either terribly busy or a total lazy-ass. I just haven’t had much to say lately. I’ve transcribed a few more letters (they’re uploaded, but not linked yet) and bound another little book, and I finally found the itty bitty ABC book I made last year, and got some better photos of that.
Instant review: How Art Made the World
I’ve watched the first disc (episodes 1-3) and am impressed with it. It’s very well put together. Art programs that appeal to both people who are in the art world and those who have no knowledge of it are rare. I think this is one of them, though. Even my neighbor, who swears she’s not artistic (ha!), enjoyed it and found it fascinating.
I got a kick out of the underlying premise that art is created by humans, and that humans were created by art. An ouroboros of sorts. I wrote something similar a few years ago:
However hard we may try, we cannot separate ourselves from the social structures that make us human. Art is the re-presentation of human experience. Art is dependant upon culture and culture is dependant upon art; man creates art and art creates man. Art is a dialogue between ourselves and our fellow humans concerning the world around us. Even if the “subject” of art is not linked to the human experience, the fact that it is created by persons with uniquely subjective outlooks on life makes it about the human experience.
I know the idea is not original, and that it has been around for a long, long time, but it’s not one that was ever discussed in my art history classes. It wasn’t until I got into the study of anthropology and history that the broader cultural aspects of art were addressed, in terms of why it exists and how it came to be.
Shrine
Shrine
ink jet print on vellum, luna moth wings, chicken vertebrae, cicada shells, and pigmented beeswax adhered to board
The writing under the photograph is from Letters to Esther, taken from a letter written by Richard Glendening. It contains a highly romantic passage likening the innate goodness of women to that of angels. Men, conversely, are of a baser nature. It might have been a nice theory in 1920, but it holds women to an impossible standard while selling men short.
red paper boat 