Last third of my folding screen

Each panel is 15"x24".

I'm in a show called TOUCH

The School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan. The show is in Detroit so I probably can't go since it's 5 hours away.

Here's a link with some information about the show: http://art-design.umich.edu/exhibitions/detail/touch.

TOUCH runs from 12/3 - 12/24. The reception is December 3rd from 6-9pm.

This is the piece that will be in it:

2/3 of a completed folding screen

The title of the final piece will probably be something like Folding Screen. Acrylic, watercolor, gouache, charcoal, sumi-e ink, and graphite and collage on canvas. I'm not sure of the sizes.

In progress

Goat, small pond, shed and garden, acrylic, watercolor, gouache, colored pencil and graphite on canvas, 16" x 18"

Basketball court and forest, Acrylic, watercolor, gouache, and graphite on canvas, 16" x 18"

Dress and flowers in a room, Acrylic, watercolor, graphite, and collage on canvas, 16" x 18"

Wreath with flowers, graphite, collage, colored pencil, acrylic, watercolor, and gouache on paper, 22" x 30".

A Sculpture

The sculpture is made of agar agar (an alginate gel that is clear) and gold leaf.

This is the piece after two weeks. It has developed beautiful mold.

Birch trees with landscape, acrylic, watercolor, gouache, pva, collage, graphite, and charcoal on canvas, 32" x 58".

Untitled, Graphite transfer and collage on paper, 14" x 17"

Waterfall painting, and also I am in a show

Waterfall and gray foliage, acrylic, watercolor, gouache, graphite, and collage on canvas, 46" x 38".

I am in a show called 2D Representations of Natural Phenomena this Friday, and it will be up all month. Here is the facebook link: 2D Representations of Natural Phenomena

I will take pictures of the show.

Gray painting, done!

Gray flowers and girl, distemper, acrylic, graphite, and charcoal on canvas, 46"x 38".

Gray painting- in progress

46" x 38" I think....Distemper on canvas.

Untitled, graphite, colored pencil, and collage on paper. 14" x 17".

New Drawings from Fall 2010

Disney trees and teeth, colored pencil and charcoal on paper. 14" x 17".

Untitled, colored pencil and graphite on paper. 14" x 17".

Untitled, watercolor, charcoal, collage on paper, 18" x 23.5".

My first painting of the semester

Untitled, acrylic, gouache, watercolor, collage, and charcoal on paper, 45" x 30".

Work from a new show

I was in a show called Employed this week. I arrived on Thursday evening with 9 other artists and started working until yesterday at 4pm. All the work that people made during that period was hung in the gallery. There were also two installation pieces put up in the work room that we were in. I only took a few pictures of my own, but when I find the ones taken by others I'll post them as well. Here's the work I made:

Wire mother, Acrylic, watercolor, gouache, and charcoal on canvas, 36" x 38"

Unknown at this time, Acrylic, watercolor, gouache, and charcoal on canvas.

I don't remember the size of this one, but it's slightly smaller than the other. I'll post the other pictures later.

I sat in the car, 18" x 24", graphite transfer on paper

It's so hard to take photos of graphite. I'm not sure why it's so grainy...

Collaboration with Mona

Today I went to a painting event in Montrose Beach with my friend Mona. A man named Andrew DeLaRosa, who runs Gallery B1E in Rogers Park, gave us paint and a canvas and brushes. We ate chips and made a collaborative painting:

Acrylic, graphite, and charcoal on canvas, like 12" x 18" possibly

It's weird how collaborative it actually ended up being. It does look like a hybrid of our work, my intuitive organic matter and disturbing sorts of drawings with the hesitancy that Mona's paintings have. I think it's quite good. The more I look at it the more I realize what a good painting it is.

I think about 4' x 5', I'll measure it later. Distemper, gouache, watercolor, acrylic, graphite, and charcoal.

I won $100 in a painting contest

First prize! It will pay for my materials for finals. Whee!

gouache, watercolor, and acrylic on paper with collage, graphite, colored pencil, and charcoal, 22" x 30"

Collaborative Project for Comics and Fiber class

(detail of the embroidery on my flag)

This project was about working together but also coming at our project from opposite directions. We decided to create flags for ourselves that were opposites but also followed the same rules. We started with raw muslin and decided on a completed size. Bennet (my partner) dyed hers black and worked into it using reverse applique, and I bleached mine white and added on to it with embroidery and applique. They reveal an organic central motif in both that was both intentional and accidental. It ended up looking like the "Houses" of Bennet and Drew, and the critique went well.

Flags, 2' x 3', embroidery and applique on cotton. (They are installed in one of our critique rooms.)

One I just finished today

It's gouache, acrylic, watercolor, collage, colored pencils, and charcoal on paper, 22" x 30". This looks completely different in real life. It has way more dimension and you can see all these weird details and things popping up from the paper.

I found this in my closet

I think I painted this a few years ago. It's collage and acrylic on canvas, 20" x 25ish I think.

New Flower Painting

I tried to combine my flower paintings and my drawings and came up with this.

22" x 30". Gouche, graphite, watercolor, acrylic, and collage on paper.

Another flower painting in progress

Colored pencils, markers, gouche, watercolor, and acrylic and collage on paper, 18" x 24"

Prolific Weekend

Colored pencil, sumi-e ink and graphite collage on paper, 11.5" x 14"

I was sick this weekend. I mostly stayed in and made work.

Happy Work

"Happy Work" is the title of an exhibition I submitted to a gallery for a juried show. A juried show is when you do a call for artists and pull from the people who submit art for the show. In this case, I would be the jury. None of my work would be in the show. Here's part of my exhibition proposal:

“Happy Work” is meant to be both an honest attempt at a descriptive exhibition title in that the exhibition examines the naïveté and absurdism of attempting to find or express the simplistic yet earnest emotion of happiness. However, the title also serves as an example of this absurdism by suggesting that this goal is impossible.

In the wake of 9/11, SAIC students have the experience of living in both a pre-9/11 and post-9/11 world, which makes them well-suited as both viewers and artists to understanding concepts such as loss of innocence and impotence in the face of disaster. This is an important time to address a less-charged post-9/11 atmosphere of innocence lost when many students have lived almost an equal amount of time in pre- and post-9/11. Work in this exhibition may not address 9/11 directly but it hopes to ask questions about feeling and communicating happiness through art. “Happy Work” can be interpreted as absurd, naïve, overly simplistic, or sarcastic. Yet, if we attempt to express or comment on personal happiness through art, why does this dichotomy of seriousness and absurdism reveal itself? I would like the viewer to ask herself how either seeking/experiencing personal happiness or making “Happy Work” reveals an underlying tension between earnest desire and absurdity.

Four new works

Colored pencil and pen collage, gouche, watercolor, and acrylic on paper, 18" x 24"

Gouche, acrylic, and watercolor on paper, 22" x 30"
Graphite, watercolor, gouche, acrylic, and collage on paper, 22" x 30"

Marker, sumi-e ink, colored pencil, and graphite on paper and tracing paper, 11.5" x 14"

I'm working right now on communicating the purest form of my concept, which is why I did the last drawing. Drawing, colored pencil, and marker is a very quick way for me to get thoughts out, and I enjoy drawing. It's also very convenient to do at home.

It's almost ten on a Saturday night and I'm working. I did have free time today but last night I worked until 10 after a long day. I have about one week of complete burnout and one week where I'm okay. Right now I'm about four days from burnout again, where I sort of collapse and do nothing for a couple of days. And I still feel like I'm not doing enough.

I'm really excited, though, because I have a few ideas that I'm working on. Also I submitted some stuff for a couple of exhibitions, one as an artist and one as a curator.

Work in progress for Friday.

CRAAAAAZZZY!!!!! This is something I'm working on for a materials and techniques class. I think I'll just resolve the upper right corner and then it will be done. It's gouche, acrylic, watercolor, and graphite on paper. I think it's 25" x 35" or something like that.

Fiber and narrative project I - Identity in four parts

This was my workspace on Wednesday night. Shown: Power tools. Not shown: bloody towel.

This was taken after everyone participated. The boxes are glued in those positions. The pink box is glued shut, but you can see someone tried to wedge something in there. In one of the boxes, someone put the instructions for the project.

This project took me a long time because I had to learn how to build things. I designed a toile pattern and then printed it on white fabric in four different colors. In the pattern of the toile there is, in addition to a floral motif, lipstick, a corset, needles (for botox perhaps) and razor blades. I wanted to suggest different ways of modifying the physical body. I'll take a close-up picture of the pattern later. It's actually quite a nice pattern.

This project is about identity. I wanted to ask some questions about what identity means and how we interpret our own identities. I gave everyone a handout with statements from pyschological tests, and their instructions were to tear off the statements and put them in the box they thought represented different parts of their identity. My critique went ok, lots of negative comments and some good ones, but overall I think people didn't like this project. It really frustrated people, which was kind of my intention. Here are some of their comments:

The boxes should be more clinical.

The statements seemed like they were from Seventeen magazine for girls to think about their feelings (they were from actual tests given to psychologists' patients, and one man stood up and said that men think about their feelings all the time)

People should have been directed toward the same final question more clearly

It was too gendered and feminine or not enough

Some people felt the statements didn't apply to them

I thought the last comment was the most interesting. People kept saying to me that some of the statements did or didn't apply to them, as if I was responsible for defining or knowing who they are. I do think who we are is defined in large majority by external factors, and when they disappear or change, we do the same, even though we have a strong sense that we remain the same person. If not for our memories, we might not have any specific identity at all.

One new drawing/painting of my dad

Sometimes it's really nice to make work that has nothing to do with any of my classes. Here's a picture of my dad that I did with graphite, charcoal, and coffee on watercolor paper. I wanted to do something at home with materials that I had around. I think it's 20" x 30". It isn't quite finished yet but I might move on and make a few more that have a more planned composition.

I've got a huge project due on Thursday, so I'll post pics of that after it's finished. It's fiber and printmaking related and I'm pretty excited about it. I get to make things in the woodshop!

Old sketches and collages