Just one postcard this morning but I may post more later. I have a few more finished. I just haven’t had a chance to photograph them. Note to self: buy stamps and start mailing these. This one is watercolor, graphite and acrylic on lovely archival matboard.
Incrementally yours,
-Steph
Hey guess what. Yes. I made yet more postcards this week. Here are a few of them.
Well, take care of yourselves. No one else is going to do it for you.
Loveandabominablehope,
-Steph
about 20 x 30 inches
oil and pastel on gessoed paper
More old work from long, long ago or about the same time as these.
about 30 x 20 inches
oil, nails and eggshells on gessoed paper
I’m still never quite sure where to put anything. And so, it just keeps piling up.
From a long way under,
-Steph
I have post-nasal drip and it’s postcards again this week! These I made using watercolor crayons, colored pencil, and ink on all rag museum board. Perhaps I will continue until I have amassed a large collection of these and then send them all out at once. Or maybe I will leave them in random places. Or maybe I will shove them into a corner to add to the clutter. Who can say?
Happy winter to you!
-Steph
6 x 4 inches
colored pencil on museum board
Despite a lack of snow, this bleak cold, dark winter has been kicking my ass. Even art making doesn’t seem to be enough to make me want to get out of bed in the morning. And the prospect of spending hours closed up alone in my cold studio, without even the company of my sweet, warm cats, is no motivation. So this last week, I moved production to the cozy inner sanctum of the living room. Of course, this meant scaling down and adapting working methods to something a bit tidier than my usual paint-slinging. So I’m making postcards. They are small and easy and I can manage making them. Sometimes you just have to say fuck it and keep going no matter how or why. Fuck it. I may even mail them. That’s one above. Here are two more:
Stay warm,
-Steph
“Unwritten”
10 x 8 inches
acrylic and soft pastel on archival mat board
I may have mentioned earlier that I haven’t been in the best frame of mind lately. Well, yeah, that’s the way it is. And then it isn’t. And then it is again. A very smart, very kind friend of mine once compared living life to swinging on a pendulum. I’m paraphrasing, but he said something like, sometimes it’s hard to tell if your on an upswing or a down. It always stuck with me because it really is just like that. And some days, you just feel flat no matter what–like that Arp poem–the one in the first sketch below. Here are two sketches I did back in 1994. Both are about 30 x 20 inches They’re from the same series as these. These old works were kind of a jumping off point for some I’m doing now like the one above.
Anyway, I figure looking back and comparing past with present is appropriate enough right now what with the new year about to come in. Happy New Year, everyone.
-Steph
Here’s a bit of progress on this one. Remember what it looked like before? Well, here it is now. It’s not a big change, but what with the holidays and feeling as if I’d rather hide in a dungeon than open my eyes most days lately, I figure any progress is good.
Hope you’re all enjoying your days more than a sharp stick in the eye and fingers crossed for a positive start to this next year!
Love and MOREFRACKINGDAYLIGHTPLEASE!
-Steph
Oh you know… “the holidays” are happening and all that so it’s time for wailing traditional songs about out of wedlock conception and excessive consumption. Time to kill trees and dress them up like two dollar hookers. Time to over-indulge in foods we pride ourselves on avoiding during the rest of the year and then resolve to quit them again once the calendar resets. GOD I LOVE THE HOLIDAYS!!! No I don’t. Well, sort of. I like the tree genocide part a bunch anyway. OK, not the genocide part, but the two dollar hooker bit. I like that part alot. I also like yowling off key with my more talented friends beside me to help make my voice sound passable because you know, auto-tune only does so much.
And so that’s what I did. I gussied up some dead wood and my friends allowed me once again to be dead wood on our yearly Christmas album. To be fair, making the album WAS my idea in the first place. Oh, and I design the album cover ever, too. It’s just that I am musically retarded, can play no instruments, and when singing require special attention in order to sound close enough to on key. Although one year I played the tambourine and that was OK. This is our sixth year making an album of four songs which we send out to torture a long list of friends and family. Would you like to hear it? It’s actually quite good despite me! Go ahead, give a listen! My pal Bodart does an amazing job recording, mixing, and making everything sound great.
Confession: I actually do like eating like a little piggie, too. So in fact, I suppose i do sort of love the holidays. Hope your days are happy regardless of what you believe and how you celebrate or don’t.
-Steph
I’ve had this piece sitting around, waiting for paint for months. This week, I started painting on it. There will be much, much more paint before it’s finished. It will likely end up with little resemblance to what you see here. But I thought it might be fun to share progress shots of this one along the way. You can see a photo of it at an earlier stage after the jump.
Alongside my sculpture, I’m also making making these quick word paintings on strips of really nice scrap mat board. Some are bits of conversations taken out of context. Some are text I made up based on awkward interactions or silent insecurities or the sort of internal dialog that begins when the external dialog wanders into that confusing realm of “Whatever the fuck is going on here I will never understand.” These are sort of like what you might see if you opened one of my journals and I didn’t bust your head open before you had a chance to read a bit. I was inspired, in part, to turn them into paintings by my friend Daniel Allyn Lee who has a real knack for word art. So far, it’s been a fun project for me.
Quietly,
-Steph
8 x 10 inches
ballpoint pen, acrylic and soft pastel on all rag matboard
You may remember that I default to circles. Here I am doing it again. If you think of the outline of a circle as a route that ends where it begins (and you are me) you may also be able to see the circle as a metaphor for acceptance, and a reflection of a recurring pattern of existence. This helps explain (to me, at least) why I return to the shape again and again.
Again and again,
-Steph
8 x 10 inches
acrylic and bits of collage on all rag board
Accepting that it’s impossible to always feel grounded might be a good idea.
With lightness,
-Steph
p.s. detail shot:
collage
10 x 8 inches or so
Sometimes I make stuff like this.
-Steph the Primate
14 x 11 inches
acrylic on 4 ply all rag mat board
Seeing as this is Columbus Day weekend, I am probably off being very busy picking apples, finding my way through corn mazes and searching out Columbus. In the spirit of the holiday, take a look at this sketch and let me know what you discover. Apparently, it is harboring such delights as a heart, a hematoma, porn, mammal meat, aquatic life, extreme weather, and unholy nods to the birds and the bees. What do you see? Say dead people and I’ll squish you like a bug.
Love, Autumnal air, and inexplicable fascinations,
-Steph
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
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 »
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 »
video still from the vid below
Here. This is another abstract video featuring one of my hard working sculptures. I am learning something new and (hopefully) getting closer to figuring out how I want these to function every time I work on a new one.
Thanks for looking!
-Steph
I love Larkin Grimm and this video makes me giggle. Have a happy vagalicious Saturday!
-Steph
I’m experimenting again (well, still really) with some very basic video and sound and using my art as the subject here. The soundtrack is just loops I mess with and string together in GarageBand.
Okeedokee,
-Stephtheslowpokeewonderslug
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