I am finally giving in and admitting it. All of my classes have officially started and it is back to business as usual. (Not that I’m complaining… I’m very pleased with my classes so far.)
I can’t believe the summer is over. It was truly a wonderful one. Which only makes it that much harder to go back to the usual grind. The major highlights were: Penland, printmaking, fresh delicious tomatoes from the dirt bird garden, a New England birthday weekend, painting, finishing an animation for Artscape, wild blueberries, and daily seafood in Maine: lobster rolls, whole lobsters, clams, mussels, scallops, haddock…
The only thing I say good riddance to: the heat. This was the worst summer of heat ever for Baltimore. Please don’t ever happen again! It is so beautiful today, though, I have already put all that behind me.
And I leave you with a few memories of summer fun.
I had an amazing birthday weekend! I drove up to see Ben in CT, we had my birthday dinner in Providence at Nick’s on Broadway, and we went to MASS MoCA to see Petah Coyne (thought it turned out the best exhibit there was the Material World sculpture show). We also ate a lot of ice cream, went thrift-storing, and did some grilling for the 4th. Doesn’t get much better than that.
Birthday Dinner! Eyeball Soup! Well… it wasn’t really called that, but it should be. It was actually yummy tomato zucchini oregano basil soup at Nick’s. We had lavender black pepper panna cotta and malted milk chocolate custard for dessert. Nom nom.
Mmmm. Ice cream. This was our first ice cream of the weekend. We had Guinness Creme Brulee and Black and Tan ice cream from The Brewer’s Cow (the shop itself was not The Brewer’s Cow, it was just selling it). Delicious! And they had an awesome sign too.
On our drive to MASS MoCA, we saw Three Sisters Sanctuary on the side of the road and decided to stop and check it out. They have gardens, sculpture, random collected junk, and the guy who runs the place restores old stoves that you can see in progress. It’s definitely worth the stop if you’re passing by.
Here’s Ben in an installation at MASS MoCA. We had fun playing with exposures on the camera. It looks like we did a Photoshop filter but we did not. Ooooh! Aaaaah! Ben’s idea; I’ll give him credit.
Turns out Sol LeWitt drawings are really fun to take photos in front of. Who would have known? I’m on an animated gif kick today…
See what I mean? More Sol LeWitt. OK. I’ll stop with all the annoying animated gifs now. And this post altogether.
Well… I made some art and met some wonderful people and ate a lot and worked my butt off and got not much sleep at all. In other words, it was pretty awesome. Above is an etching/aquatint/screenprint lift-ground/chine colle (sounds pretty snazzy doesn’t it) titled Texan Ingestion. I chose the title because part of the image is from a small portion of a Texas map and I think this guy is ingesting something - who knows what. It is the only print I had time to edition (edition of 7), unfortunately. It’s pretty small: 6″ x 8″.
And above is a monoprint/xerox transfer. Please excuse the quality of image I got from my sad dying camera and lazy lighting situation. This one’s bigger: 15″ x 22″ (too big to scan). No title for this one yet. I did make two versions of this one, slightly different. But the other one sold at auction at Penland.
I also learned how to photo-carborundum aquatint. This was all new and exciting to me, not being a printmaker and only having taken relief print classes in the past (which I also love). Now I just have to find a place to print before I forget how to do everything. Anyone know of anything in Baltimore?
My instructor was the amazing Thomas Lucas. If you’re ever in Chicago go see him at Lillstreet Art Center. All in all Penland was a wonderful experience. It was also beautiful there but I was way too busy to notice that much. Don’t do the work study unless you’re prepared for the most exhausting two weeks of your life! But if you’re up for it, it’s worth it.
I’m at Penland! I will be taking a two week long printmaking class and I’ve been crazy busy since I’ve been here so just a short post. Weather has been wonderful since I got here and I have already met so many amazing people. Here’s a view from where I am staying.
And here’s a view of my “room”. Or more accurately, nook. Classes start tonight. Can’t wait!
On a recent trip to Austin I saw the work of artist Teresita Fernandez at the Blanton Museum of Art. The image above is from a room that featured work that was made entirely with graphite. The structure in the foreground was built of graphite (not really sure how) and the work in the background was small bits of graphite that were stuck to the wall and there were soft traces of smudgy marks (either from graphite dust falling over time or drawn, not sure which) on the wall. It was difficult not too touch. I think what amazed me most about her work was that each piece took a relatively simple idea or material or form but then the scale or light or placement of the viewer around them (sometimes all three) transformed them into individual little worlds or landscapes where I felt like I was the only person that existed in each of them.
I took a road trip with my friend Missy this weekend to Philadelphia. Thanks for asking me to join you and suggesting some great destinations, Missy! Every time I go to Philadelphia I have a great time and see super-duper (I used the thesaurus to get that word because I didn’t want to use great again and my brain wouldn’t come up with anything interesting - thanks thesaurus!) things and convince myself I want to move there. Are there any out Philadelphians out there? Is it as awesome as the awesomeness I am projecting onto it?
Part 1: Jason Hackenwerth Show
Missy introduced me to this artist (which I believe is what inspired her idea for this trip in the first place). We saw his large scale balloon sculptures at a gallery whose name I can’t remember but was an amazing restored warehouse style space and was in the same neighborhood as the restaurant we went to below. The fingery parts of the uninflated ends reminded me a lot of some of my more obsessive amoeba-like drawings.
Part 2: Lunch at Johnny Brenda’s
We met a friend of Missy’s for lunch here, thanks to her friend’s wonderful suggestion. At my insistence we began the foodfest with a whiskey donut. Delicious! And very whiskey-ish. I couldn’t help but be reminded of my grandmother’s super soaked rum balls that I love now but was disgusted by as a kid. Also at my insistence we sat at the dark table with pulsating lights (pictured above with the beloved donut). I proceeded to order ham and cheese grits which was covered in sunny side up eggs. Also very yummy! I finished it all off with some wonderful local beer - they had a lot of choices on tap. It looks like this place has it all: good food (both savory and sweet), good drink, interesting decor, and apparently live music as I see from their website.
Part 3: Eastern State Penitentiary
I have always wanted to go here but for one reason or another all my trips to Philadelphia have not allowed the time to squeeze it in. Until now. If you have not been there, it is worth checking it out! We happened to pick the perfect kind of day to go (dreary, overcast, and chilly) and the sun was setting toward the end which added to the creepy factor of the place. The detritus, textures, and gloomy atmosphere forced me to have to restrain myself from taking a photo every time I took a step. Artist installations appear here and there in some of the cells. I wouldn’t suggest going there if you are expecting something amazing installation wise. While some of the pieces were great (again that great, but too lazy for thesaurus this time), you aren’t going to run into one every time you turn a corner and a lot of the technologically dependent ones weren’t working. Oh, and if you decide to go, you have the pleasure of a walking recorded audio tour with Steve Buscemi to look forward to.
We had a few other interesting adventures but I think you’ve heard enough and those are some of my particularly favorite highlights.
Lots of traveling last weekend! A perfect time for it too. The leaves were beautiful. I drove up to see Ben and while there, we went to Boston for our anniversary dinner (because there aren’t too many - any, really - options out in the middle of nowhere CT) and to NYC for a day of gallerying in Chelsea.
Dinner was amazing. And I have two new favorite artists now. The first is Marina Zurkow (video from the show I saw above, taken from her site). We stumbled upon a great group media exhibit (Jim Campbell among them) where we saw her work. Make sure you take a look at her site! She is making quite a broad range of both visual and conceptual pieces. She is awesome!
My second new favorite is Thordis Adalsteinsdottir (I had to check that about ten times to get the spelling right), a painter from Iceland. The image above I took from her site, though not one I saw in the show. None of the images I could find even come close to doing her work justice, unfortunately. Her color changes are subtle and the detail in her imagery is very entertaining. I love the large mural she has posted on her site.
Lots of other good stuff too… enough to keep me inspired at least for a little while.
I just got back from a trip to San Francisco. I saw a show that inspired me enough to post in my blog! There is a positively amazing show at the SFMOMA of William Kentridge’s work. Good news for you east coasters: the show is traveling to MOMA, New York next year. I had seen a lot of his work several years ago in a show at the Hirshhorn and was impressed then. But this show blew me away even further. The image above is from his interpretation of Mozart’s The Magic Flute. Apparently, Kentridge directed an opera based on Mozart’s several years ago and then decided to create a traveling puppet version run completely electronically. (The image doesn’t even begin to do it justice!)
The image above is from a piece titled What Will Come (has already come) in which Kentridge projects an animation from above to a spinning cylindrical mirror below, distorting the imagery to a “normal” view onto the mirror (kind of like a modern day praxinoscope). Again, the image does no justice to the actual work. If you have the opportunity, go see the show!
Kentridge’s work appears to be moving beyond projected animations on a flat wall and into performance and more multimedia or even sculptural work. It was exciting to see an animator moving beyond the traditional projection and got me enthused and inspired for my own work.
What else did we do on our trip to NH? We took the long way home and stopped in at MASS MoCA. It was really really amazing. And also out in the middle of nowhere. If you ever find yourself in MA and have the time to drift on over to the very northern western part of the state, I highly recommend it. What looked like a 30-minute venture from the map off of our path home ended up being quite a bit longer. The roads were small and windy. But beautiful, and it was well worth it.
There was an installation by The Miss Rockaway Armada that was lots of fun and hands on that made me feel like an adult child on an adult playground (which I feel like most of the time anyway, but this was really meant for that). There was a really amazing Jenny Holzer installation that I won’t even try to explain because an explanation makes it sound kind of boring (which it was not at all) but for those of you that know her work it was one of her projections devoted to a huge warehouse like room of its own. This is where Natalie Jeremijenko’s trees are! And yes, they really are twisting around and growing growing upward toward the sun. Lots and lots and lots of good stuff.
That’s Ben in the Miss Rockaway installation. I know I have a lot of pictures of Ben in my blog, but he often happens to be there when I am out and about and there he is and there I am taking pictures. You know how it goes…
I was lucky enough to attend some very good friends’ wedding last weekend in New Hampshire. Phil (an amazing filmmaker and animator) and Rachel (a wonderful Baltimore crafter) had a very beautiful and fun wedding. I have to admit, I even cried (and I can usually control myself at these kinds of things). The ceremony took place in a tree covered small clearing on a farm with live music and touching speeches. Afterward, great dancing, drinking, and food (particularly the wide assortment of yummy cheeses, thanks Phil!) was to be had by all. I have to say, this is one of the best weddings I have been to. Thanks guys!
This trip also gave me the opportunity to visit three states I had never been to before: New Hampshire, Vermont, and Massachusetts. Now I just have to get back up there to Maine sometime, the only New England state I have not been to now.
goodbye summer
