Family Matters Show.

Memorial to my Great Grandparents
Relief Print on Canvas

diss•patch
Silkscreen Print on Muslin

I make imagery of my family as a way to connect with them.  When dialogue fails in communication, delineation can certainly succeed.

In diss•patch, the text that makes the mark of the portrait comes from letters written by the woman represented in it - my grandmother.  Writing letters within my family has not just been a form of communication.  For me, it has become an important instrument for storing memories past.

What I have left in regard to my deceased great-grandparents is only the ability to recall.  Included in Memorial to My Great-Grandparents is the little that I can personally relate to them.  These memories have been made tangible through contact between my blade and wood, and the prints create connection to those in my present life through visual stimulation of recollection.

you guys.

I'm feeling weird. My computer is so full of stuff that I have been going through and deleting unnecessary files, only to find my high school senior self portrait I did for my painting teacher, Mr. Jackson.

I haven't looked at this stuff in so long -

Patience, process, progress.
Working on it.

001

 

001, a 7x11" silk screen print and first of many experiments with creating depth with added values and layering.

Blueberry Muffins!

Because you shouldn't have to feel the blues when you can eat them instead.

Ingredients
2 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup non-dairy milk
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1 1/2 cups blueberries

Preheat the oven to 400°F and line or lightly grease your muffin tin.
Combine flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice in a medium-sized bowl.
In another bowl, mix together the milk, sugar, oil, and vinegar; then combine wet and dry ingredients.
Fold in the blueberries with a spatula. 
Bake for 20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean, and let the muffins cool for at least 5 minutes.


My favorite.

A Portrait of Betsy.

I was given the opportunity to create a 'portrait' of my buddy Betsy Stout in our screenprinting class.  I was pleased to incorporate things easily associated with her: coffee, pet rats, and really pink pink.  A little goofy and way too fun.

energy.

 

On that list of goals I previously mentioned is included, "Print like I draw."  This is getting me on my way to being a happier printmaker.  I have always had a disconnect between drawing and printmaking - printing seeming more precious, in a way.  You work an image for so long, while a drawing can be done and done quickly.  This idea is extremely internal, however the mental block hindered my work and well-being significantly.  I have finally come to the understanding that now that I have learned the skills of printmaking, I can make art.

On that note, I finished this 4x4" relief on Wednesday night, starting around 9:00 pm and staying at the shop until 1:30 am.  Carving is so fun, printing can be the opposite.  Once I got into it, though, I was finally excited to be doing it again.  

I sliced my thumb open while doing some touch ups that night, only to find that none of the first aid kits in the shop have regular sized band aids. Facepalm.  Though very frustrating, it reminded me of my freshman and sophomore year when I had insomnia and stayed at school until late, late hours.  I cut myself so many times while carving wood, so Wednesday altogether reminded me of the past: routinely motivated, upset, excited, and productive. I photoboothed the bags under my eyes to remember this.

Exhibit A

BUT, after a very down and unmotivated last several months, I'M BACK.  Doin' stuff.  Catch you guys on the flip side.

Blind.

 

Here is a recent blind contour self portrait from my sketchbook. One of my favorites. 

octo

 

"     "

Drawing Erin.

Last night was a good hang out with a good buddy. Weird drawings happened!

 

draw and drink and laugh and hold your chin up

My Spring 2013

list of goals has officially been started. It includes a few specifics that relate to how I am going to approach my artwork, and also how I handle myself in relation to the people and happenings around me.  I am working on having a positive mindset and fulfilling actions that push toward that.  These seem like continuous issues which I have a hard time solving, but I am (once again) figuring out my endgame - at least as far as school goes.

This week I stayed with this love pup / old man Potter while my friend was out of town. He used to be my neighbor dog and hasn't changed much since I knew him as a kid.  He is such a lover and a true puppy at heart.  It was nice to have a week away from my apartment and even better to have a live soul to exchange company with.  We went on a few adventures and had a couple play dates, as well.

Here is his sweet face!

I have been mad sick this week, so I feel a little off and behind.  I am on the mend, however, and am  ready to continue kicking booty this semester and climb this section of the wave of life.

Until next time..

"title:

Happy Hollerdays

I received the amazing gift of a CanoScan 5600F from my parents this season, so now I should be getting things documented in a much more timely fashion right from home! Stoked.

MANIFESTO OF FUTURISM

F.T. Marinetti - 1909 "

1. We want to sing the love of danger, the habit of energy and rashness.
2. The essential elements of our poetry will be courage, audacity, and revolt.
3. Literature has up to now magnified pensive immobility, ecstasy and slumber. We want to exalt movements of aggression, feverish sleeplessness, the double march, the perilous leap, the slap and the blow with the fist.
4. We declare that the splendor of the world has been enriched by a new beauty; the beauty of speed. A racing automobile with its bonnet adorned with great tubes like serpents with explosive breath... a roaring motor car which seems to run on machine-gun fire, is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace.
5. We want to sing the man at the wheel, the ideal axis of which crosses the earth, itself hurled along its orbit.
6. The poet must spend himself with warmth, glamour and prodigality to increase the enthusiastic fervor of the primordial elements.
7. Beauty exists only in struggle. There is no masterpiece that has not an aggressive character.  Poetry must be a violent assault on the forces of the unknown, to force them to bow before man.
8. We are on the extreme promontory of the centuries! What is the use of looking behind at the moment when we must open the mysterious shutters of the impossible? Time and Space died yesterday. We are already living in the absolute, since we have already created eternal, omnipresent speed.
9. We want to glorify war - the only cure for the world - militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of the anarchists, the beautiful ideas which kill, and contempt for woman.
10. We want to demolish museums and libraries, fight morality, feminism and all the opportunist and utilitarian cowardice.
11. We will sing of the great crowds agitated by work, pleasure and revolt; the multi-colored and polyphonic surf of revolutions in modern capitals: the nocturnal vibration of the arsenals and the workshops beneath their violent electric moons: the gluttonous railway stations devouring smoking serpents; factories suspended from the clouds by the thread of their smoke; bridges with the leap of gymnasts flung across the diabolic cutlery of sunny rivers: adventurous steamers sniffing the horizon; great-breasted locomotives, puffing on the rails like enormous steel horses with long tubes for bridle, and the gliding flight of aeroplanes whose propeller sounds like the flapping of a flag and the applause of enthusiastic crowds.

Museums, cemeteries! Truly identical in their sinister juxtaposition of bodies that do not know each other. Public dormitories where you sleep side by side for ever with beings you hate or do not know. Reciprocal ferocity of the painters and sculptors who murder each other in the same museum with blows of line and color. To make a visit once a year, as one goes to see the graves of our dead once a year, that we could allow! We can even imagine placing flowers once a year at the feet of the Gioconda! But to take our sadness, our fragile courage and anxiety to the museum every day, that we cannot admit! Do you want to poison yourselves? Do you want to rot?

What can you find in an old picture except the painful contortions of the artist trying to break uncrossable barriers which obstruct the full expression of his dream?..

They will crowd around us, panting with anguish and disappointment, and exasperated by our proud indefatigable courage, will hurl themselves forward to kill us, with all the more hatred as their hearts will be drunk with love and admiration for us. And strong healthy Injustice will shine radiantly from their eyes. For art can only be violence, cruelty, injustice."

barely blue

Recent Self Poortraits.

In Pieces.

A 7x11" silk screen print made for a portfolio exchange between IUB printmaking BFA students plus ten guest artists.  

Tout, tout le temps.

Sorry, September.

I just wanted you to get a tiny taste of who I get to meet in real life this weekend.


My apologies for such negligence toward this blog. If, at this moment, I wrote a paragraph about what has happened since my last post, it would sound what is opposite of clear and concise. I tried.  So, I will give you a quick update in visual favorites of the best last few months ever.

Stay tuned for new things, dudes.