Vaudeville Returns to Vermont...One Week Show!

Hello Folks! I am crawling out of my hole, or what is better known as the grad school-juggling act. This little shop is just down the street from one of my favorite refreshment destinations the Live Wire. I can’t believe I have walked by this storefront for years without noticing this gem. I unfortunately missed Holy’s performance. Much has gone on in a very short period of time. Besides my regular studio work (more on that shortly), I also had an exhibit of two new pieces in Mexico (more images on my Facebook page) and I learned how to use a chainsaw. I found out a chainsaw is much heavier than paint brush and it takes two hands.

Me with a chainsaw, protective helmet and chaps! My neighbors love it when I break out the heavy equipment like chainsaws and grinders.

What started out for me in the studio this semester as a challenge of figuring out how to use photography in a way that it is something else, a drawing or a painting? (One of the first images)

After sharing some of the images with Marie (my FA), she asked if I was asking myself “what constitutes an image?” I hadn’t thought if my work in those terms, but it excited me enough to want to reconsider my last package of readings to include Rauschenberg’s Erased de Kooning.

Although my intention is not the same as Rauschenberg’s I believe, a thorough understanding of this specific work is still relevant. To say the least, I have some reading to do before the end of the semester because my FA and I decided to completely throw out the last package and I am know going to go in a different direction in regards to my reading. “The objects I like to focus on have developed wear and have aged, what I like to refer to as “beautiful decay”. In highlighting decay, I am trying to connect with the personal memories that everyday objects bring to mind for each of us. With these momentary memories, I want the viewer to regain an appreciation of their surroundings and indirectly with each other.” A little background I used for my study VC group to get a feel of what I am working toward in the studio. The next image is the kind of things that have interested me visually.

I still want to erase some of these images, not completely, but just enough to make it interesting. My thoughts are maybe installing one image erased and one next to be untouched. For me this goes back to the question that my FA posed about what is an image, the photo image or the manipulated image. I believe they are stand alone, but put together I think it opens up a possible dialog between the two images.

In addition to broken up old asphalt, I have been talking with my A/T about other ideas using traditional Mexican iconography to tell a contemporary story. We both thought it would be too much, but opportunity rose its ugly head in the form of an exhibit at the Mexican-American border crossing (the one I mentioned earlier).

So I thought I give it a try: http://cognatecollective.tumblr.com/

I think I should be able to pull it off the rest of the semester. I am looking forward to catching up with everyone in person, hanging out on the porch, maybe a swim or two. Enjoy the images and see you all soon!

Michael

hall ghost

During an Epic Winter Lightning Storm...

Colin Played With His Organ.

seven minute max ideas??

what do you see

more pictures at the link... dont want to be the one who over shares and posts too much :) probly to late on that one huh?
beth

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?fbid=10150172012791667&id=607111666&aid=341873

Ahhhh, college days......

But I never got a picture of Thais or Todd...........j.

hi

How's it going out there? writing? reading ? making?  have folks turned in papers? , how did it go?

xoxo
beth

stuffs in time

re watching parts of Life on Mars, a t.v. show , there is an english version and an american version , both deal with displaced time etc. feeling very inspired, so glad i remembered it. has anyone seen it? anyways just sharing what feels like a break through ... from the past in the present :)

p.s. and heres some new images ...experiments really ...submitted for your approval...or disapproval i guess :)
darker? ghosty? lemme know.
beth

Here's a shot of what I've been up to...

Of all deadlines, this fell on the exact day that everything else I had to do was on! Luckily it was a pretty simple charcoal drawing, and not a massive painting... These two are from Chicago. It was just a commission piece.


Cheers,
Jon

Hey guys: This is a solo show of some of my recent work at St. Joseph's College, a small Liberal Arts college in LI.  I am going to even present a slide lecture to the art students! My first experiece of that sort. Anyway It really IS a "Board Room Gallery"...........low key but fun. I'm getting through the readings, and have two full weeks to bust out in my studio! Hope you're all fab, my little VCFA vaudeville freaks.....love to you all, j.

I'm in an art show this weekend .. Here's some new work going up... Thinking of all of you :)
Beth

I'm only working small from now on....

installation at babson...now I can get to work on the grad school stuff....-chris

set 3

beth

set two ...

beth

feedback please set #1

these pictures should get bigger if you click on them..
thanks, beth

writing, etc....

ugh- haven't even started...my first mailing isn't until the 21st, so i'm just reading my brains out...thoreau, the history of american transcendentalism, and I'm supposed to read moby dick- THAT'S not gonna happen (2000 pages) so I'm trying to find critical essays....anyone meet with their AT's yet? Mine (Carla Herrera -Prats) and I have been in touch, trying to meet in march- that thing's due tomorrow!!

writing the papers

How is writing the papers going for everyone? it can be tricky for me to switch gears from writing to making....
beth

Feedback on an idea - Dirty Laundry

Years ago when we were back in Vermont, it turned out Janell and I were one of the last people to leave the campus. Every once in a while I would go over to the hall way for a drink of water. Each time I would walk by, this pile of dirty towels and bed sheets kept getting bigger and bigger. It also started to become more and more interesting to me because it started to touch on some of the ideas I've been playing with in my work. That's how we impact our surroundings and the physical marks that that leaves behind, along with the histories/stories these marks make. So I am going to show you the image I took followed by what I have in mind for a possible installation.

When I took this picture, there was a guy working and stacking the bags in the cart. So, I asked if it would be possible to not clean a pile of laundry (for a small fee thinking I could avoid transportation costs or at least reduce it) and he said NO. Can't be done. I haven't given up yet, but before I push the issue of finding out how I can get a pile of dirty laundry so I can install in the gallery, I thought I would ask for some input. I am thinking of having a pile of unclean laundry like this one in the gallery with digital images on paper of common household items  hung near somehow like: sinks, toilets, shower heads, soap, trash cans, etc. I didn't like my digital images and how I had mounted them. I am thinking flat transferred photos on to paper and either sand or see what comes off in the printer and work with that. I would try and recreate the image of a sink, etc by drawing in pencil or ink like an architect would very straight lines. This would contrast with the faded image on paper and relate back to the idea of memory, histories, impacts, and the pile of dirty laundry next to the images.

Thoughts?

Space4art Gallery Opening - Feb. 24, 2011

This is a somewhat new studio/gallery space in what we call the East Village of downtown San Diego. There's a few live/work lofts inside, too. It is a huge space that takes up a whole city block. I am hoping to get a studio space if they think I am worthy. You have to be interviewed and demonstrate you are a "serious artist". I think you have to have paint or something on your clothes the day of the interview?

This is my favorite artist of the night: Claire Zitzow. She used photo images and used installation elements like the wood you see to create a dialog between the each of the pieces. 

http://www.sdspace4art.org/ 

May-ling Martinez 

I had met May-ling months before when she was working on the drawings of this huge piece. This is only a small section. It fills up two walls of the second gallery.

I don't remember the name of this art because I felt a need to get out of her studio before I became one of her installations. There was freshly cut oranges, sound, so there was this overwhelming sensory overload going on. Yes, that's fresh sod on top of the roof of her little house. She wasn't in the main gallery or a part of the opening. She lives in the space and just opened her studio with this installation, which many of the artist with studios there do on opening nights. She told me it was a work in progress and she was planning on including a performance of some kind along with the installation. The little character inside is looking at a broken table and there are large wooden spoons, etc hanging from the ceiling. 

I'll try to keep posting interesting openings or shows that come up throughout the year. 

M