I am back to working on the subject of identity. This time, I have photographed portraits of 47 strangers, 23 men and 24 women, and hope to show the degree of visible variation between people of a certain place (I staked out a spot at a local community college). More to come on this.
Nikon N80 with Nikkor 105mm f/2.8G lens and Kodak T-Max 400 film, printed on Adorama-branded, variable contrast, fiber paper.
This was an very old, unresolved monotype I’m painting back into and as it’s developed, I realized that a bit of my father’s design sensibility had creeped in; the Dante series to be specific. I’m not quite sure about the lower portion with abstracted stalagmite ink streaks. I wanted to have an area to strike a tense balance down there. What do you think?
A Bow to Purgatory, oil over monotype on Rives BFK paper, 24″ x 18″
detail
Below is a painting on monotype from last week.
The queen in the Afternoon, oil on monotype on paper, 20″ x 16″
I’m still working on these minis in between experimenting with larger paper not quite ready for viewing. This color combination was provided by a beer ad. Now I wish I had more time to say something about it, but it’s Minks to Sinks again and I really need to be down at the tents getting rained on. See you guys later.
This is a piece I made using leftover parts for another portrait of Miles I made that is being used as part of a longer term piece. My vague intent with this was to convey the sense of an album cover from the early to mid 1950s.
It doesn’t imitate any exact label, but personally I’d place it somewhere in the Prestige or Columbia spectrum. Next to these examples, I’m afraid the piece doesn’t hold up as well as I’d like, but it got me studying it, so I’m happy.
Anyways, having done this research (after the fact), I thought I’d offer an informal guide to Jazz Album Art style across different labels. The site http://www.birkajazz.com/archive is absolutely invaluable in this, and I recommend studying their extensive collections by label.
When people think of jazz album art they immediately think of Blue Note Records, and for good reason. Designer Reid Miles and photographer Francis Wolff gave them a consistency of style and voice that allowed the full label’s stable of artists to present a unified visual identity.
This piece is representative of the early Blue Note style, which often fits the mold of photos fit into random shapes with text randomly arrayed aligned it.
This image kind of fits the same vein, but the parts are all simplified, and the sense of design is more confident all around, leading to a period when the photograph would be allowed to dominate the proceedings more freely.
This is the quintessential Blue Note cover from this early period. An expressive photograph is given the majority of the space, with an overlay of blue used to flatten it somewhat while the title shouts itself from the perimeter in a stand-out white that boxes the photograph in. It’s perfectly simple and yet also perfectly manipulated.
An early typography experiment that points towards the future.
An example of the line drawing you will find on some albums, in this case, if you can read the signature it belongs to a young Andy Warhol.
I’ll continue this at length after the jump. Read more »
yes. it’s a lot more energy consuming than i thought. while i’ve been going to my new studio digs, getting in a groove is proving to be a wee bit tricky. not that i’d imagined it to be a seamlessly scripted tv show kinda event. y’know what i mean … show opens, something happens and by the 22nd minute (excluding commercial breaks) everything is resolved and folks live happily ever after. not so fast little girl….
what i have been consistiently doing is taking pictures with my phone, then over-proceesing the shit out of them and having some fun. it’s my one consistent attempt at staying in the game. the camera phone has proven to be a worthy sketching device. a handy tool to use when all you wanna do is keep your head in your art. i’ve even found a few worthy of printing and sharing.
so, let me start again… good day fair folk. here are some pics i made while waiting for the other artist side of me to get her studio shit together .
Here’s another closeup shot of a work in progress. It looks like ice cream, doesn’t it? Well, it ain’t so don’t eat it. God I’m tired! And I have very little to say. And I am in need of a shower. And I apologize to you as well as to myself for beginning these sentences with the word and. It’s just not proper.
Let’s see if this post is salvageable. We could spend some time talking about the relevance of the ice cream resemblance. OK. Well, I’ve spent a good long time looking at images of food to fuel my brain for this series. What else can I say about that? Oh, things and stuff I’m sure, but what’s the point really? The point is just one of many that I have no energy to make.
And so, (there I go again with the and) I will, instead, leave you with a favorite old video of mine. Who wants to steal an ice cream truck and drive off into the desert with me to make out? I have buckets of paint and if you’re half as cute as James Iha in a dress I’ll let you play with my gun.
Loveandjunk,
-Steph
I’m continuing the exercise of painting over monotypes and I’m just exploring the application and reaction of the oil on printmaking paper. The paper is a medium to heavy weight Stonehenge brand and absorbs the oil paint and turps relatively quickly; the opposite of the method used in making the monotypes, since with the monos its about oil based paint and ink applied to plexiglass: no tooth nor absorption but simply a resistant glassy surface that the paint glides over. With painting directly on the paper, its about discovering the various lengths of time different paint films and colors tack up and how they interact with paint layers placed over them. I’m allowing and developing loose abstracted form with these early stages. Technically these could be called either paintings or monotypes, but you can call them anything you want. If it’s a four-letter word, I don’t really need to know about it.
Pigeon is old slang for a young woman, back when men were men and misogynist was a 10-letter word.
T.B.
Old Ruling Class Revise, oil on monotype on paper, 20″ x 16″
The original monotype:
there are many formal aspects of the print that I really like and have been changed and obliterated. Ah well. You must destroy to create to destroy again.
I needed a bunch of stuff done to my car, brake pads, roters, spark plugs and whatever, and luckily enough I have some friends who can hook me up with that but it means I have to amuse myself while the work is being done. I was looking around and I saw this up on the wall (it’s a little hard to miss)
So I started thinking, “Well I have all my collage shit with me, maybe I can play on the wall too”, so I yelled out the front door, “Hey can I glue some crap to your wall?” and without even looking up they said yeah do whatever you want. Whatever I want? That is my favorite phrase in the world. I knew I didn’t have a huge amount of time but I could at least get started, so in about 2 hours this is what got done.
Since there is more stuff I need done I am considering this a WIP for the moment, no plans on where it is going but there is plenty of time to figure that out, I’m just happy to have a big space and no pressure to get anything done. They were happy with what is there and I am happy with my car being fixed.
Last week I was having energy and anxiety issue. Finally, one day at work, I forced myself to draw this:
As I said then on tumblr, “When the world seems particularly stupid I get an obsessive urge to make perspective drawings to assure myself order still exists, even if it’s just the illusion of such.”
Since then, my computer has refused to acknowledge my printer/scanner combo, my cable television cut out and as of this morning, my building’s water didn’t work. Possibly due to a crackhead stealing it’s pipes. Clearly, a fancy cube wasn’t going to cut it. Thus I present you, the “rhombicuboctahedron,” a term I had to look up on google this morning. I had been calling it a 3D octagon, but will now pretend I knew it’s real name all along.
(I apologize for the appearance of these photos. Due to my scanner being out I used my camera and apparently messed up the entire enterprise.) This version was inked with drafting pen on vellum (the vellum I’m using is basically high quality tracing paper). This allows me to preserve states of the original so I can go different directions later if I choose.
This is an earlier state of the same drawing showing the completely transparent rhombicuboctahedron. It may take a while to understand it as such, but I assure you it’s true.
The next 2 drawings are blurry. I apologize, but they help give context to the above 2 drawings.
Read more »
that’s right … last week was work for pay. nuthin more, nuthin less and nuthin to show. i promise this time next week, there will be something worth reading and seeing. until then … here’s a picture of one of my images in a show curated by brian dupont opening october 6 in new york. here’s a link for more info extra gallery
Oh to be prolific in an orderly way, as in, to begin and complete specific things within a foreseeable time frame–what I wouldn’t give for that! OK well, as nice as that would be (and when that is my goal I am even capable of doing it), sometimes it’s just nicer to dive in and jump around in the mess without caring so much about presentable finished pieces. And that is precisely what I am in the midst of doing these days. Thus the sporadic bits and pieces views I continue to share here and there, on and off. Today, I give you more bits.
The first image off to the left there is of a sculpture in progress that I have since continued working. It may or may not be done now, decision pending. The photo below here is a closeup shot of another sculpture. This one is finished. I will also include a complete view of it after the break.
Read more »
New art soon. Until then, enjoy the apes with the severed heads.
I’m in Cape Cod this week and kind of stuck without proper art-making materials as I work fixing up a beach shack. I’m lying here while a chicken is cooking in the kitchen and the smells waft into my flared nostrils. I’m hungry and you’ll just have to deal with this older monotype from the pompously named “archives”.
Tastes Like Chicken (formally titled Untitled Figure #2), monotype, 14″ x 9″
We had 8 days of no power after the hurricane, which isn’t as horrible as it sounds, but I guess maybe my next door neighbor got bored or something because he took it into his head to put on a little unwanted show for me while I was on my trampoline.
I’m not the kind of chick that gets thrown into a tizzy at the mere sight of a nude man, but there was definitely some creeper element to this situation. Trampoline time is sacred to me, it’s where I get my exercise and work out problems. It affords me the best view of my property and gives me the opportunity to monitor progress from an aerial advantage, so I was deeply annoyed at having this precious position compromised. My first thought was to move it to another location, but that is kind of impossible because it’s enormous, and I almost entirely forgot that I had it installed in place for just that reason, so lifting it anywhere was out. Screening seemed like a better idea, but I kind of hate manufactured fencing and I really didn’t want to spend money because someone else was being a dick. Or showing a dick. Whatever.
Instead I noticed that there was a small copse of trees that arced around it and thought, “why don’t I just build that up a bit?”, seemed like a workable (and free) solution. I strung some plastic cording between two trees at three levels and stood long, narrow, scavenged branches against it, then used nylon twine to bind them in an easy weave. Now wouldja look at that, a 10 foot tall fence that blends in with the natural landscape!
During the parts where the support trees were a little further apart I added some extra durability by making a chain out of the cording, in this case speaker wire was chosen for the flexibility, the plastic coating, and the ability to hold a knot.
Once the initial structure is finished I plan on going back and staggering a second layer across the front of fill in the gaps and cover all the ugly wires. Hopefully my neighbor can keep his pants on in the meantime.
What I wrote before still applies to these. In fact these were actually assembles prior to the pieces in that post and looking at them now, there’s more that I like in this batch. A few of these have some issues where the bottom layer is wavy, or some of the layers got rubbed raw in the gluing process and that’s made me ambivalent toward them, but this morning I was pleasantly surprised.
I’m also very tired. Last night I had a dream that was such a Matrix rip-off I found myself thinking in-dream “Not another Matrix rip-off!”
More after the leap. Read more »
as i’ve been moving my studio, i’ve come to realize just how much energy is infused into the space in which an artist works. my home studio enabled easy access and provided me with comfort and a sense of security. it also doubled as a guest room, so when friends and family arrived for extended stays, i quickly gathered my essential art tools and left my little room. i would peer in when our guests were out sightseeing to make sure my packed away materials were safe and no dog or small child had eviscerated anything.
when the opportunity to move into a shared space with a old dear friend presented itself, i jumped. i also did my homework. i looked at other studios in the city carefully measuring the distance/time component traversed on bike and whether there was public transport nearby. i factored in rent which needed to be within a budget that i could reasonably afford. after lots of visits and bike rides the original opportunity seemed perfect.
now for the move … what i didn’t know, nor could i have forseen, was the internal struggle. that struggle being the need to redefine who i am as an artist, how i make work, and the essential need for time management and discipline. i no longer have the luxury of “hanging out” in my home studio for an hour or so. i must place my studio practice into the arena of commitment. yes folks, commitment. it’s been an easy ride for these last years and now i’ve challenged myself to shit or get off the pot. i certainly have enjoyed the lazy jaunt to this place in my life.
i must now engage a new set of skills and inject my studio space with the energy of an artist ready to begin a new chapter … a deepening challenge and a commitment to break of out of the comfort and dive into that place where the best of my vision awaits. it’s kinda hard, yet i’ve paid my september rent and most of my stuff is there.
i guess this means no more going in to the studio with my pajamas on.
in this transitive period the iphone comes in handy:
by StephG and MarkieB
about 5 x 5 feet square
My pal Mark and I had fun doodling on the sidewalk at the third Great HolyokeBlock Party in Heritage Park last weekend. We brought a couple of boxes of chalk and with very little urging, convinced a bunch of kids to help us cover the concrete. More pics after the jump! Read more »
Oh, hello there. Yesterday was fun. We did this–we being me and my old pal Mark. 
It was our contribution to the Northampton, MA Chalk Art Festival. Yesterday, participating artists spent the day drawing at various spots along the sidewalk on Main Street. The drawings will be on view throughout the weekend. Today, the public is invited to draw in Pulaski Park in the center of downtown. Read about the festival here. And see more pics here. Thanks to the Northampton BID, Chartpak, The Northampton Center For The Arts and everyone involved for such a perfect day!
-Steph
Last weekend, I visited my mother-in-law in Springfield, Illinois, and she drove me around looking for abandoned buildings for me to photograph (who else has that kind of a relationship with their in-laws?). We found a couple of barns and a slaughterhouse, which made for a nice little outing.
All Nikon D300 with Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8G lens.
Another reworked monotype. I was thinking about Frank Auerbach, the great british figurative expressionist. He’s one of the painters floating in the back of my head; his aggressive paint-slathering is of such a unique character it has hammered itself there into my sub-brain. My application isn’t mimicking his nor is it close, it’s the attitude he has with working and reworking this viscous medium until it practically destroys the surface and has to be scrapped down and rebuilt all over again. I’m having a great deal of fun exploring and tripping along with these old prints I made back at Robert Blackburn’s Printmaking workshop in Manhattan.
A Nod to Frank, 1993-2011, oil paint on monotype on paper, 24″ x18″
Agora Gallery - the proud sponsor of the Chelsea International Fine Art Competition, which offers contemporary artists the opportunity to show their original art at one the most acclaimed juried art shows in Chelsea, New York’s art galleries district.
darteboard
jdhastings
ssstephg
Tom Bennett
Toni Tiller
Jason Gray
probrucer
laelia e. mitchell
