Flies & Octopi

Post-graduation: what I've been doing

2012-11-29T04:51:00.003-08:00

It's been 8 months since I graduated. Time has gone by so fast. Since I graduated in April I feel like my work has suffered a little bit but I am ready to jump back onto the horse. I am going to start researching more artists and spending time in the studio.

In May, Carey Francis, Andy Perkins, Venessa Gromek and I got a 1,000 sq. foot studio in the Ogden Industrial Park. It's a really nice big space and most of the time I feel like I have a huge studio all to myself--we are rarely there at the same moments. I miss school and being in class with other like-minded people the most. It really motivates me to work. I know that if I didn't have a studio I probably would have produced zero work so far, so I am glad we have it. We have also used the studio as an exhibition space. In mid-October we held a show titled The Ineluctable Modality of the Visible: An Exercise in Pretention. It was a one-night only show and it was fantastic. I think probably close to 100 people were at the opening, which is a lot for a little show in Ogden. We were really excited about it and are planning on doing another one in the Spring.

This summer I did some work with UMOCA. I painted a piano for the "Play Me I'm Yours" project. It was one of 10 pianos that were placed on the streets in Salt Lake City. Nordstrom at City Creek selected my piano out of the 10 to display in front of their window. It was cool because they coordinated my color palette with their window display. Here is the link -- Street Pianos. I also did a painting for the museum for the exhibition "Cantastoria." It was part of a project by Rainer Ganhal.

Other than those things I have been working little but trying to stay on top of things. My ideas have gotten away from me and at this point I am just trying to produce something. I basically did two series of works this summer and I have recently started on little paintings again. I am applying to Skowhegan, one of the nation's top residency programs. I am crossing my fingers I get in, I really need it. I was going to apply to grad school this year. I started the applications and everything, but I changed my mind recently. I don't feel like I am 100% ready to go yet. I know I want to go, but I want to see how I do on my own first, if I can get into any shows, etc. I want more time in our studio and I want to keep holding our own shows in our space. I am just not ready to leave and I don't think there is really anything wrong with that. I really need to build my body of work up some more...just a little more time is all.

New Site

2012-07-09T09:53:00.003-07:00

Hey folks!

I now have a new website. I will still post on this blog, but the website will be more cohesive and profesh! Check it out.

www.hollyjarvis.com

Art should be like sushi- less is more.

2012-04-12T11:22:00.001-07:00

The show is up, the deed is done. I want to make a poem about how it feels to finally have finished but I come up with none.

er....

This morning, Aaron Moulton, curator at UMOCA came and had a guest crit with the BFA students. It was laid back, he had good comments and everyone was laughing at one point or another. One thing that I really took from his visit today was the idea that "less is more." There is no mystery anymore and sometimes we can get carried away and say too much. This topic came up with Holly D.'s work and with my own. Maybe my sculptures were getting carried away, maybe I haven't quite activated the space enough for my own purposes but it's all a learning experience. I am not going to change anything at this point. It's over and it's time to move on. It made me really think about art in a different way. Sometimes I get caught up in the richness of things, objects, ideas....that I forget to keep it simple and to let the viewer wonder.

Keep it simple stupid.

I am excited to start new work-eventually. I am needing a break. After graduation next Friday Brock and I are going to San Francisco and I am thrilled. I am going to see the SFMOMA while I am there and possibly check out the Art Institute. The semester is ending on a good note and only time will tell what happens from here.

10 days to opening

2012-04-03T11:11:00.001-07:00

It's 10 days away from the Thesis opening. I still have a lot of work to do on my large paintings, and the sculptures, but I think I have enough time to get it all done. In reflecting my semester, I think I put forward my best effort and I just hope that in the end it all looks good.

Since I haven't been blogging (at all) since January, I think that I lost a little bit of my direction conceptually. It's still there, but not actively thinking about it and just being worried about producing the work has definitely put a halt to any development. I don't think it's bad to focus on simply making for awhile, and I think I certainly need to take a vacation outside of my own head a little bit. I am trying to prepare the final stages of my artist statement, and I think that's going to be the hardest part of everything.

...

My work has essentially been centered on experience. Describing a certain reality of my own, and trying to imply one with the viewer. It stemmed from some kind of mental-emotional state I was in, but as I have worked through the paintings, I have also outgrown that state of mind. It still is true, and still applicable, but I think I am trying to look at the big picture of things. The figures in the work, both painting and sculpture are important for describing experience, creating empathy between viewer and work. Humanism is something relatable. Honestly, when I look at my paintings, I feel sad for the figures. I want to save them, but I am the one creating them and their insane environments. I think that is an interesting dichotomy between what I am capable of and what I am actually doing. I think that's what it's really all about. It's not about what kind of environment the figures are in, or what they are doing, but rather how I relate to them in that moment in time. In creating them, I felt like I was playing the role of absolute power , but now as I reflect on them I feel like I want to save them and I feel helpless with them.

Inside my head.

2012-01-29T20:58:00.000-08:00

Today I made a small moquette of what my Thesis show will look like. It was a fun exercise and had me thinking about installation issues that I probably wouldn't have thought about had I not done it. I made it so I could keep rearranging things as my ideas grow. It is really helpful when it comes to planning out the placement of work and what is going to happen in the space, especially when my work is concentrated on the distortion of it. It also serves as a little reminder about how much work I have to do, and the materials I still need to acquire--such as sculpting my bodies! So much to do, so little time. This definitely helped me as a visual planner, though.

Workin' hard, painting harder.

2012-01-27T14:10:00.000-08:00

This week I had two of my first critiques for the semester. I have to say...they went pretty well. I got some good feedback. A lot of people liked my work, and I got some ideas on where to go next. I am happy with where I am at in my work and I am getting really excited about my show. Oh, and since I last posted I got into the Student Show at Weber. Woot! I submitted to CUAC this week as well, and I really REALLY hope I have a chance at getting in. It would be awesome to show there and to have an opportunity to show in L.A. (The juror is from L.A. and is looking for Utah artists to represent in a show there).

I decided right now I am not going to do a video animation for my show even though I was really excited about it at first. New genres is something that I am interested in and I think that I have seen a lot of strong work in new media recently, but I don't think my ideas are ready for that. I received some good advice from a few different professors this week and I feel I have a stronger direction now. I am still going to make various "figure" sculptures, but they won't be projected on. I am really going to explore what interests me about the space and the figure interacting together. I think I was trying to force that with the video part of it, and it just wasn't there conceptually. I can create an interaction of space and figure without video. Most of the positive feedback was about the architectural spaces I was creating for my figures, so I think I am going to explore it even further. I know right now that the space is important because it creates a context of distorted perspective for the audience and for the figures in my work. The figures are a metaphor for the ways life can distort us. This weekend I have a lot to do and catch up on, but I am looking forward to a complete weekend of art.

I paint butterflies and rainbows. Not.

2012-01-18T20:08:00.000-08:00

Mourning death is never easy, especially when it's a child.

To be painting what I am painting right now is odd, to say the least, but also constructive to my ideas and probably necessary.

I can't just stop what I have been doing just because it hits too close to home. Sometimes making art isn't all butterflies and rainbows. It's work (all of the time), and most of the time, it's brutal.

I have been more or less dealing with "death" in my paintings for awhile now. Not just death in a literal sense, but death and the experience of being a person, of life, living, and trial. Death of ideas, of trust, of relationships- all kinds of death. The figures in my work to me seem to be a metaphor for that human experience. The strange, indirect ways in which I have contorted the "bodies" are the ways in which life sometimes will disfigure us as people. Our experiences more often times than not, will lend themselves to be disfiguring in the mind and in the body, sometimes even in our environment. Of course some of these pictures are more narrative according to my own experiences and there are some that aren't. I think that's why I like to make these images. Who really knows what goes on inside my head or in my life? Who really knows what happens in anyones life? We really don't know the story behind every person we meet, but I can bet that they are similar. The way we deal with them are not. I deal with things on a much different level than most people I know.

In a way, continuing these paintings while mourning the death of someone is confirmation for me. Death is elevating human experience in my pictures even more so now than it was before. Or maybe, it's just me and the way I view my own pictures. Right now, everything seems to be moving in slow motion all of the time. It's like I am taking in every detail and moment on a literal level.

In all sincerity, I won't ever get the answers to all of life's big questions. But at least I can make urgent pictures and raise some of my own big questions, for myself and for others.

Land of the Rising Fish Heads

2012-01-03T16:06:00.000-08:00

Here is some of my work going on in the BFA house right now:

Detail

This is the painting I showed in my last post. I have re-worked it since then and now I am taking a little break with it. Right now it feels right, and I want to let it sit for a few days. While I'm resting with that painting, I have gone back to one I started last fall but haven't touched in months (pictured below). I felt like it became irrelevant to my new ideas and wanted to start again on it. Today was an awesome painting day. I got a lot accomplished and I felt good about what I was doing. I wish every day could be that way. I think I am most productive when I can be working on multiple projects and bounce back and forth. It's not really my thing to do something start to finish. I like to ponder it and re-visit paintings a number of times before they really feel finished to me.

The colors in these images are not perfect, but you get the idea. In this new painting, I am playing with the idea of hybrid spaces and figures. I think it is similar to my big paper painting (of course). This work is something of landscape, in orientation and in content, but it also becomes a room or enclosed environment. I think it is kind of funny that since this is the first landscape orientation I have painted on in awhile (My last few have been vertical), that I decided a land formation needed to be in the foreground (Conditioning!?!?). Nicole probably was getting annoyed because I kept saying, "Oh look, how funny, that dead fish head is a rising sun," but I thought it was kind of interesting. Sometimes weird moments like that inspire titles for me, so I think I may call this piece, "Land of the Rising Fish Heads" or something to that effect; even if in the end, I decide to paint over my dead fish head.

Nicole painting in our sweet studio! :)

That's all for now. Feel free to comment! :)

Time to get serious

2011-12-26T10:27:00.000-08:00

Christmas was a good break. School starts in one week--it's time to get serious.

I painted this morning for a couple hours, and I was surprised how "out of it" I felt. Not painting for a week messed me up, but I am glad I am trying to get back in the groove before school starts. I am going in tomorrow and painting again.

I was really feeling frustrated with this picture today, of course, because it is new and it's what I always do-get mad at new things. I was getting irritated with the color but then realized that it wasn't color that was upsetting me. The fear of the unknown, the stress of Thesis starting in a week, and feeling like it didn't make "sense," that's what frustrated me. When I say make "sense" I don't mean that it's a concrete thing has happened in the world and exists in reality. You know a picture makes sense because you feel it with your eyes. It doesn't have to be realistic, but it just feels good.

I need to nail down what it is exactly about these paintings that I am trying to communicate. There's a lot in them, that I don't even understand.

These things I know for sure:

My paintings stem from personal experience.

The figures represent me 50% of the time, and the other 50% of the time they represent significant people in my life.

I see symbolism in everything.

Often when I am painting, I am trying to portray an experience or a feeling. Mostly what I have experienced--the pictures are a record but also a translation.

I am interested in painting as the manifestation of human experience.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

This week will be spent on refining my artist statement (which is fairly up-to-date), and working on my Thesis proposal. I know for a fact that I want to have at least 3-4 large scale paintings in my show. I also want to incorporate video and some time of interactive sculpture. The first thing that comes to mind, is a pile of mummy-hybrid people, probably sculpted out of some kind of light fabric. The bodies will serve the purpose of a projection screen for my video animation, but also as a sculpture. I want the two media to interact. Lastly, if I had time, I would want to create some kind of sound piece, similar to one that I saw (well, heard) in Italy this last summer.

These are some "interactive" art projections that I am sourcing inspiration from:

hybrids, death, space, meaning, fear, puppets, and other ramblings.

2011-12-04T14:23:00.001-08:00

Knowing why I do what I do is important to me, but it can also be a burden. I really have the tendencies to over-think just about everything, including my art work. My work has made leaps and bounds in the last couple months. It has been a hard run discovering these new images and wrestling with their meaning. There is a lot of personal experience imbedded in my pictures. I know for a fact this is why I run away from everything new I create. My images create a dichotomy between my life and what painting is. They mediate what is. I think the thing I fear the most about my pictures, is that not even I can understand them. I know other people won't "get" what it's about, and I don't expect them to. It's important to me though--to analyze them and often when I do, I see a lot of myself in them.

The hybrid idea has taken on a whole new meaning. It lends itself to spaces now, not just figures. This is always been something I have been interested in--the spaces people make. A phrase that has popped into my head countless times in the last year. Of course I mean both the spaces in your mind, and the spaces in a physical environment. When I look at my pictures, I see a lot of meaning. I see a lot of symbolism and metaphor. How they all work together, I am not sure yet. I am still interested in the theme of puppetry, of control. My puppets have become more morbid and dark as I have worked with them. It's almost as if the pictures I made before, with the palette cut-outs, were a mask for what I truly wanted to paint. I remember someone saying last semester in crit, "Your pictures are too nice."It was very true, so much that it bothered me, and made me realize that it really isn't what I wanted to be doing. Those elements of my painting experience were definitely necessary to where I have landed presently, but I am glad to have moved on from that.

In my current painting, I am dealing with architecture. Heavily influenced by Matthias Weischer, I am creating hybrid rooms. I think this new content developed from my hybrid figures, because I was yearning for a place to put them. No only that, but a room in itself can be a very personal thing. It can encompass a lot of memories, and can be indicative of a certain experience. As a painter, I can force the viewer INTO an experience. Into my experience of a hybrid, alternate reality.

Moving on

2011-11-02T13:03:00.000-07:00

For now, it's done. I am moving on to the final "impossible" painting. I can't see this picture moving in any other direction, but I feel like it was a breakthrough for me. Who knows, I may go back to it, but for right now I am going to let it sit.

For tomorrow (thursday) I am going to work on paper. I don't usually work on paper, and when I do, it's a little traumatizing. I get nervous painting on something that is somewhat foreign, but I think it will be good to try, seeing as how it is going to be part of my impossible installation/painting anyway. In the studio, I am going to start with the paper and with the ideas I have from this last painting, and I will see where it goes from there. At home, I want to start doing another stop-motion animation. I imagine painted "scenes" of three different rooms/spaces/environments. In each frame I am thinking of suspending, or hanging a different hybrid form. Fish-lady would be one of them, and I am also thinking of a half-pig half-man. I want to make a short film that can be played on a loop. I think I might start creating characters and scenes tonight.

I have also been working on writing up a new artist statement. Here is what I have so far.

The pictures I create feel uncomfortable but necessary.

In my current work, I am investigating the spirit of hybridity and what the significance of half-human forms might mean in contemporary art. In retrospect, many different cultures and artists have used hybrids in art and I think it is often used similarly, perhaps revealing something about the human experience.

Though I am making public pictures, they are private and concern my personal psyche. I am interested in creating confronting images, forcing the viewer into an understanding. I feel a certain amount of animosity towards the figures I am portraying, which at the moment is a half fish-half human form, but I also feel empathy. I am not particularly concerned with a specific hybrid, but the significance of them in general.

These hybrids are the manifestation of chaos; they “naturally” come from disorganization and do not fit inside of any category but their own. These images allow us to confront fears about ourselves that we cannot confront in a “normal” fashion.

fish-lady paintings, continued.

2011-10-27T21:48:00.000-07:00

"And you're a good mummy" - 36"x48"

Current work in painting right now. I am completely loving it. Today in the studio, there were so many good vibes going around. I felt like everyone had a great painting day. This is a work that I just barely started on Tuesday night, so in just two days I feel like I have made a lot of progress.

This fish image has been away for me to immerse myself in representational while still thinking abstract. Since I keep painting decapitated, cannibalistic, mummified fish-hybrids, my fiance keeps asking me, "Why do you hate fish??" kidding of course. I don't hate fish (I have three pet fish, actually!), it has just been an image that I have latched onto. It has opened a lot of doors for me in my paintings. I really like that I am creating an environment in this painting. I am trying to get away from using too many lassnigy colors, and so far I think it's a success (her influence still present of course). I need to work on the fish head some more, and maybe the environment. Before I mummified the fish, I felt like something needed to go on in the space around it. Now I don't feel that way so much. Conceptually I am confused/excited about the marionette/puppet theme. It kind of came out of no where, but at the same time, it's always been in me. I have been meddling in all things "controlling" for sometime. Now I am physically controlling an object in my painting. It raises questions as to who is doing the controlling, and who or what the hybrid fish represents. Also I am wondering what good it is to play puppet show with a mummified character (hence it is not movable). These are all things I have been thinking about during this process. One more thing...I really like that the hybrid is set to look like it's dangling in front of the picture plane, and not technically inside it. Matt brought that up and I think I would like to experiment with that idea some more in later paintings. He also made a good comment today about the content of my picture. I was really fighting the "body" of the hybrid and I was saying to him, "Oh I keep having things pop in my head, like mummifying this fish..." and he says something to the affect of, "What would lassnig do? She would just make up an appendage, don't think about what should be but rather what it is." He is right, she would just do it, and that's how she gets those 'strange' images. I see paintings all the time from different artists and wonder, where do they come up with this stuff?? That's exactly how. They are just doing it, the image comes to their head and they put it down.

This is a painting I started maybe a week or two ago. I haven't touched it since the day I started it and I'm not quite sure where I will take it, but it's an ok start.

I went to the library the other day and got some really awesome books to read. One on Francis Bacon, R.B. Kitaj, and also a newer collection of painting abstraction. I am excited to read through them and gather some more ideas.

Bombardment in the city

2011-10-10T21:38:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking all day.

This is the "egg" I am referencing

I don't really know where it began. I think maybe it all began with my Pegasus egg. Yep, that's it. If you don't remember, I made a painting back in Spring that gave birth (no pun intended) to the idea of protection in the form of a city and an egg. I call it Pegasus' egg. Again, why a mythological horse named pegasus would have an egg I have no idea, but that's not the point...

From this "battle scene," I felt bombardment in the city, and what I was creating was protection. I was working to protect this strange egg formation (sunny-side up).
Protection.

Let me back up.

I enjoy painting figures.
I want to incorporate figures into my work.
I prefer to paint woman figures.
I basically associate (in my mind) all women figures with mothers, the maternal, and fertility.
I have a certain disposition about these three things.

Do we see where this is going? For some reason today I have become extremely interested in maternalism, behaviors of mothers, and the characteristics of mothers. Not even of motherhood specifically, but what makes mothers, mothers. This is a semi-new thought process, as in I have thought about it for awhile but have never written it down. I am trying to make this idea exist by writing it out. It's not a complete thought yet. I was going to mull over this idea in my sketchbook for awhile, but I figured I might as well search for my answers publicly.

Is it feminism? Is it maternal loss? What it is, I don't know.

I do know that I have a lot of reading to do.

Here's what good ole' wikipedia has to say about Maternalism:

Maternalism refers to an attitude or a policy reminiscent of the non-hierarchic pattern of a family based on matriarchy.

In this form of system, women use society in order to protect children from unnecessary harm. This system is the opposite of paternalism; which refers to a policy that resembles θε hierarchic pattern of a family based on patriarchy. Opponents of paternalism (and proponents of maternalism), such as John Stuart Mill, claim that liberty supersedes safety in terms of actions that only affect oneself.

I also found an interesting article on Neo-Maternalism.

Fay Ku, and why I love Quaytman

2011-10-07T20:30:00.000-07:00

Last night was the Fay Ku artist lecture at Weber State. She is amazing, and I absolutely loved her work. She does large-scale drawings with graphite, ink and some paper collage. I loved the way she talked about her work. She is very intelligent person and has a lot of knowledge of art history, greek mythology, and she is also really in-tune with world events. I really need to make myself informed of those things, especially of world news. Her work seemed so precise, but at the same time it was open to a lot of interpretation. It seemed like she had a reason for every mark and color, which was really spectacular. She made me really think about how I need to stay on top of my research. I also thought Fay was just adorable and very funny. She can admit when she was too tired to work, or just couldn't produce a new concept. I think that was good for myself and the other art students to hear. Sometimes it's ok NOT to reinvent the wheel.

Woodmen II by Fay Ku

See What You Do by Fay Ku

On a related note, In painting class yesterday, I think I realized why I finally love R.H. Quaytman's work. She and I are on polar ends of the spectrum when it comes to art making, but she is my idol. I love how archival she is, and that she is so intuitive to the context of her work and she has a meaning for everything. She is constantly diving into texts, images and filling her head with all kinds of information. She also sometimes copies images from other sources, which was kind of cool to think about. It gave me validation for copying my own small forms and enlarging them to a bigger canvas. So in all, I love the way Quaytman thinks and how that affects her work. I want to be that kind of artist. I don't just want to be skillful, I want to be a thinker like her, and like Fay Ku. Of course, I like the work Quaytman puts out as well.

Distracting Distance, Chapter 16 by R.H. Quaytman

Sweet, sweet things.

2011-10-05T21:52:00.000-07:00

There is some excitement starting to happen in my life.

The painting I am working on right now is going well. I feel like I have opened doors for myself as far as my small forms go. I have wanted to figure out how to make them move past just a small sketchbook page. I have wanted to enlarge them somehow but I haven't quite figured it out--until now. Can you tell which one is the bigger one? I am having fun with it, and I have been using cups to mix the paint in instead of a palette and it has worked wonders. I can paint so much thicker now. Nicole will laugh at me for saying that I'm sure. :) In a way though, I feel like I am cheating on my smaller paintings. It's like I am copying myself, which is completely fine, it just feels odd.

Printmaking has been amazing. This is one of the etching/shine colle prints I did. I am in love with it. I want to somehow mesh the two materials together. Print and paint...hmm..we will see what happens. I would love to incorporate prints into my paintings.

On a side note, I am applying for an internship at the Salt Lake Art Center. I am way excited and I hope that I get it. I am applying for a curatorial position as my first choice. If I got this internship, I would be working under Micol Hebron, which would be an amazing opportunity for me.

Also, the NCUR (National Conference of Undergraduate Research) is going to be held at Weber State next spring, and I am going to enter some paintings in that. I have until November 15 to get them in.

Things are lookin' up.
:)

Dead ends

2011-09-29T21:39:00.000-07:00

Going through periods of doubt and distance can do the mind some good. Sometimes, failure creates understanding.

4x6 painting I will enter in a show coming up..
(not the one I am talking about in this post)

I feel like my last painting was a failure, but not in all senses. The piece isn't done really, but I don't have a desire to work on it anymore. I am not pleased with the results, but I am content with that fact. It was good for me to destroy something that I liked originally. This small painting, only 4"x6" in size, went through a number of permutations. I have never so dramatically changed a composition, so many times, in one piece. So in that regard, it was a success.

Though I am in the motions of painting, I am not totally into it right now. I am really discovering a love for printmaking. Relief prints, not so much, but etching is where it's at for me. I will take quality pictures of a few prints that I have done, but I am really pleased with the process overall. It feels good to HAVE a process. It is immediately gratifying (or in some cases, disappointing). I guess I have a process with painting. I start, and I respond, putting things where I think they belong. But etching is its own process, before you even get to the image. There's a number of things you have to do before you can even see your picture. That's another thing: I am making pictures. Recognizable pictures. It's different, and again, it feels good to me. I am not saying I want to abandon my forms and ideas, but right now, it's a new vein to travel through that I think I really need. Making "representational" images has been a nice release from my mind, which, at times I feel trapped inside. My paintings have been suffering throughout the course of my printmaking endeavors. I think, though, it is a necessary evil.

As artists, we have a huge responsibility to art-making. We have to know the past, present and basically, the future of art.

........

My pictures are important. Representational or not.

........

I am not built for normalcy or conditioning.

........

I am my own beast.

And then...

2011-09-13T18:33:00.000-07:00

Things are getting better.

My painting is "done" for now. I am not completely satisfied with it, but I think some good things came out of it. I learn something after every painting, and with this painting I learned perseverance. From the beginning it was giving me heartache, and up until the last 24 hours I didn't like it at all. I still am not completely settled with it, but I need to let it rest and exist just how it is for awhile. I think I also realized with this project that art does not make me who I am. I am trying to keep from getting too personal with my work, only in the sense that I don't give myself a hard time if one painting doesn't come out as a masterpiece (which is going to happen more times than I actually create a masterpiece). It's all a process and in the grand scheme of things, every painting is working toward a better one. It's like the great painting that will never really be achieved because you're always working toward the next better one.

Something Matt said today in critique really resonated with me. He said something to the effect that, "your painting will always come after the painting before it, but will always be before your next painting." I can't remember exactly how he said it, but it really made sense and strengthened this idea that my life does not fit into a box called a painting. I will survive through each one. I am the creator but sometimes I have to stop and listen to what the painting wants. Late last night I finished up on this painting, finally bringing it to where it is today, and I was asking myself, "What does this painting NEED?" Not, "What do I want to do to this painting..." It was helpful. The book I am reading for Text and Textiles by Twyla Tharp has been good motivation for me. She has made me realize that every artist (or creative person for that matter) always has trouble starting whatever they are doing. She does this thing where she stamps her foot down on the ground and shouts, "Begin!" It just sets the tone for her starting point, and allows her to BEGIN. That is the hardest part sometimes. It was definitely an issue for me with this work. So last night, as I loathed the idea of painting, I forced myself to the studio, forced my brush into paint, told myself in my head, "Begin," and so I did.

Other nuggets of art inspiration/things to think about....

Art is always creating problems for us to solve

We make art because we hunger for knowledge

Art is evidence of your state of being (BUT does not dictate who YOU are)

So you might be wondering why there is a picture of a palette on this post...

I was very distraught one day after painting because I had squeezed all this paint (brand new) onto the palette and didn't touch any of it. I was whining to Nicole about it and she says to me, "Why don't you just throw some color on your canvas before you leave?" I said, "No I don't want to do that..." and then she says, "WELL, at least just smear it around so you can cut it up later."

It made me laugh so hard that it was uncontrollable. Other people probably don't think it's funny, it's probably one of those "you had to be there" moments, but I laugh when I remember it, so.....

The beauty of fabrics..

2011-09-10T19:58:00.000-07:00

There really is something to be said about the satisfaction in surprise.

These are my hand-dyed fabrics for my text and textiles class. I was so excited to wash the dye out and finally reveal the patterns and color underneath. These fabrics gave me a satisfaction that painting somehow doesn't. I think it is the element of surprise, the un-knowing. In painting, or at least in my painting, I never really know what it will look like in the end. But there is a gradual work that takes place where I can anticipate what the finish line looks like. With these fabrics, these beautiful, tactile things. I had no idea what to expect, and that was ok. I think I need to apply that same ideal into my painting. It's ok not to know, and to take risks.

It's hard to choose which piece I like the most. I almost want to leave them how they are and not change them with over-dye. We will see. I had so much fun with the process too. It was relaxing and exciting at the same time.

Objects as objects

2011-09-06T19:31:00.000-07:00

With school starting, I haven't had much time for updating the blog. However, I felt that today was a good day to catch up on things. First of all, the more I work, the more I feel like my paintings metamorphosis into their own "thing." I rarely plan out what I am doing. The extent of my planning consists of gathering materials and a surface. Though I guess I am always prepared with knowledge and a comfortableness within my own context of painting, so I somewhat will always have a degree of expectation. The work above is our "second" painting in painting class. I am just going with it. I actually stole some images from R.H. Quaytman ( I have been reading more about her work, and the more I read the more interested I become). The pyramid-like shape is from one of her pieces and was kind of a jumping off point for me in this painting. Since then I just have been adding and adding, letting whatever comes out of my brain happen on the canvas. Matt said something to me that really resonated. He commented that I always feel like I have to "start over" when I have a new painting, and that I give myself a harder time than I need to. It's true that I have a, "So what have you done for me lately?," attitude, but I DO need to lighten up a bit. I need to get over the fact that there will be motifs that want to occur again and again in the work, and I just have to let them.

In class we also had a small discussion about paintings, or any work for that matter, representing themselves as objects and not as a metaphor for something else. For some reason this idea was hard for me to grasp. We have been conditioned for so long to think, "Here's my painting...this is my idea...this is how I constructed that idea...etc., etc.," It's a very strange thing to let a painting or image or thing exist as itself and not try and attach something to it. I need to think about that some more...On another note, I have been doing a lot of reading and I think that it is helping me clarify some ideas, or at least give me some new things to think about. There is so much information out in the world, I wish I could absorb it all.

I am going to try to enter in 2 Juried shows in the next few months. One is with the Utah Division of Arts and Museums, and another is with an online gallery called, "Upstream People Gallery." I need to put my work out there.

While perusing through the online gallery website archives, I stumbled upon this artist that I was particularly attracted to. Her structures and forms are similar to mine and also her color palette. Just some visual eye-candy....

By the way her name is Minerva Ortiz

Losing My Mind

2011-08-12T19:02:00.000-07:00

I did it.

I made an animation using the figure and my forms. It took me many hours and isn't the grandest stop-motion ever made, but I finished it...for now.

I really just began playing with the idea of stop motion, and then a little narrative surfaced. I am pleased that the thought patterns of my work lately is surfacing in this little video. It's fun, a little creepy, but visually appealing. I am not sure why I titled it "Losing My Mind." Sometimes I feel like the main character does. The sky seems to be falling all around you and you feel as if you might lose your head. My goal for this video was simply to making my objects interact with person and environment, and to see what I could do with animation. Make it any narrative you wish, but I enjoyed bringing forms to life.

I foresee more stop motion in my future.

You or Me

2011-08-11T19:17:00.000-07:00

Tuesday (August 9th) Nicole and I painted at the BFA house for a couple hours. It was pretty wonderful and I wish we spent more time there this summer. I tried to finish my self portrait that I started working on a few sessions ago, but just kept getting frustrated. Nicole started on a self portrait and it looks amazing. I wish I could paint the figure like she does. I always give up.

I set the self portrait aside and started on a painting that I have wanted to do for a long time - a study of one of Maria Lassnig's works. I chose her piece, "You or Me." It kind of fits my mentality of 'disgusting' picture making at the moment, and I learning a lot about her color choices and the way she applies her paint. I think my technique is naturally similar to hers, hence why I enjoy her work so much.

Today, Emily and I met up for dinner and had a good discussion --mostly about art, and how we miss Venice. We also talked about the show we want to do together in the Fall. We decided to plan for November. I am really excited and I hope we can make it happen. We were talking about her work and I mentioned to her the animation of hers titled "Pea Pod," that I found on youtube, and it inspired me to REALLY work with animation.

I have been saying I want to do it for so long with my abstract forms, I just need to do it already...

...So I am starting tonight.

Breaking

2011-07-30T12:13:00.000-07:00

At any given time, life throws you a curveball.

I am at the mercy of my art. I have invested time into nothing else but it (a little untrue, but not wholly). This is truly all that I want: to make art; but I am really letting myself get down about the other "skills" I don't have, or jobs I will never get.

I can do anything but I can't do everything.

I am at a point in my life where I want something new.
I am ready for change.
Call it my quarter-life crisis.
I am ready to throw everything else out the window.
I am ready to dive into the abyss of art making.

What have I got to lose?

I am screaming at the top of my lungs for new doors to open for me. I guess I have to keep pushing forward.

I started a self portrait this week. I felt like I was being reincarnated. Pushing paint around on canvas gives me freedom, and when I don't do it for awhile, I start to feel enslaved by reality. I have been reading as well. That releases tension.

My portrait, even though I haven't looked at Lassnig's work in a few weeks, resembles her figures. I want to make "disgusting" pictures. I am tired of being nice. I am finding myself interested in the person-object-environment relationship. I thought about making my self portrait disproportionate, but haven't found a reason to...yet.

Gettin' my groove back

2011-06-25T14:42:00.000-07:00

It's been a week since I left the beautiful Venice, Italy. I am a little disappointed in myself that I did not post on the last day there. I worked so hard for three weeks to post everyday and gave up at the very end!! Oh well. We didn't do too much that Thursday (June 16th). I packed and we went to do our final talks at Giardini and Arsenale. My dislike was Greece and my like was R.H. Quaytman (Gotta read up more on her!). That night we had an amazing dinner at AcquaPazza. A restaurant just outside of our Apartment. It was delicious, and was great to have everyone together for one final sha-bang. Friday was a very long travel day for us, but overall nothing eventful happened. No luggage was lost! Yay :)

Now that it has been one week of adjusting back to my "normal" life, I'm finding that I want to shake things up a bit. Live outside the box. Italy gave me so much to look forward to in the art world. Seeing what is possible, and finding more artists like me. I met some really awesome people, including at the airport on the way home!! (shoutout Alex) :) I'm definitely broke for awhile, but that experience was well worth it. Now I need to get back in the studio and let some ideas cook for awhile.

Day 20

2011-06-15T14:59:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Today I woke up around 8:30 a.m. We met upstairs in the big living room to talk about the last couple of days. A lot of people were worried about the work we need to do for art history. I don't know why because we have the rest of summer to do it, and it is supposed to help us but oh well. We Went to the Fortuny Museum after that. I really enjoyed it (much more than Ca' Pesaro). There was an ecclectic mix of work and the exhibition space was pretty cool. It was inside of Fortuny's house, and basically there were floors that were left the way he had it while living there, but with the works exhibited. We couldn't take pictures and I didn't buy the catalogue but it was a really neat show. There was a piece by Anthony Gormley in there that I loved, and there was also a James Turrell piece that was almost exactly the same as the one in Arsenale.

After Fortuny, most of us headed back to the house to eat lunch, then regrouped around 1:30 p.m.

San Michele from the Alilaguna boat

lovely Burano

We walked to the Fondementa Nouve (Don't think I spelled that correctly) boat stop and took a ride to Burano island. It was a very relaxed day at the islands. We spent about an hour and a half on Burano (It's next to the famous Murano glass island). It was a cute place because there wasn't a whole lot of tourists, and all of the houses were painted in the same bright color palette, very different from Venice. The girls and I got some gelato and picked up some small souveniers. I did two sketches while we were there as well. We then got on another boat to Torichelli, which was about a 5 minuted ride and even smaller than Burano. It only has about 60 residents on the island, so you can imagine how deserted it felt. The main "attraction" there was a small Byzantine church at the end of the canal, that was maybe a mile or two walk. There were some really beautiful byzantine mosaics in this Extremely old church. I think it was build in 700 A.D.?? Not sure though.

"The Devil's Bridge"

Snuck a picture in the Byzantine Church!

Ah, finally on my throne.

We finally made it back to Venice around 7:30 p.m. and then about 8 of us went to this really nice little restaurant that Matt knew about. It was delicious. I had Risotto and a Gnocchi dish.

Day 19

2011-06-15T04:19:00.000-07:00

Today I woke up and my eye was still swollen a bit, not as bad as yesterday morning though.

We walked as a group towards some national pavilions. On the way we found a church with some Tintoretto paintings inside. We also went outside this other cool church that had some pretty fantastic marbeling on it. It looked like the stone was split in half and the marbeling made an ink-blot type design.

A few people got pretty exhausted and went home. Matt kind of let us do our own thing after we looked at the churches together. We saw a lot of collatoral events, and some national pavilions like Iraq, and Bangladesh. I kind of lost the group after Bangladesh and decided I would go into Arsenale by myself. I needed to take some more photographs of individual artists for art history. I went through it really fast because I had already seen most of it, and I was getting really tired. It was hot today too, so the walk home was a little exhausting. I think everyone is just pooped after all the things we have seen and done.

Kenz and I outside the Days of Yi

Frogtopia! Oh geez...

Iraq pavilion

Bangladesh

Josh Smith in Arsenale

For dinner, I just made pasta and did some homework afterwards. I did some sketches too, a portrait of Aaron and an interior view of the apartment. We met up as a group around 9 p.m. and went to Campo San Stefano to do some night drawings. A lot of people didn't stay very long but I enjoyed it once I got in my groove. I started out frustrated as always though--I really need to stop doing that. We worked on black paper with white, grey, and black chalk. We came back around 10:30 p.m. and then I just went to bed. It was a productive night :)