Anderson Ranch + Critique Workshop / Part 5

My final presentation at Anderson Ranch this week was really minimal and simplified. I narrowed down my concept so that the work would be more specific, yet also more open-ended.

I wrote up a mission statement to describe what I wanted my work this week to be about. It all boils down to this:

My work is about the material body plus the mental/emotional space that partners with physical embodied experience. It has a voice that is powerful but not aggressive.

I had worked all week trying to do too much within each individual piece I was making (especially the Stuffed Blue Heart). I wanted to strip away any extraneous visual information and leave only the essence of the physical/emotional experience in the heart center.

Each piece spills out from the wall at about chest-height, and is about 6x6 inches square.

I have about 1,000 ideas on ways to expand and build on this concept. I never thought about doing sculpture before now, and suddenly it’s all I can think about!

I hope I will be able to attend many more Critique Workshops at Anderson Ranch in the future. This was an amazing experience that has changed my work forever.

Anderson Ranch + Critique Workshop / Part 4

Ribcage Study

Finally, I figured out what I wanted to convey with my work this week at Anderson Ranch. But I still felt I needed to look at some other avenues for expressing it. I thought I wanted my work to be very open-ended and abstract, but I wanted to be certain. So I did these more representational drawings of the heart and ribcage, since the chest area became the primary area of the body to which I wanted to relate.

 

Heart Study

I like these drawings, especially combined with the ink washes, but the mood/tone I am going for right now is much more subtle. I think I should stick with abstraction for the final crit on tomorrow.

Anderson Ranch + Critique Workshop / Part 3

 Stuffed Blue Heart (detail)

Ink and twine on paper mounted on board

In process

I had been working on this piece for several days, trying to combine the ink work with the twine work. I worked out a lot of issues in this one, and I am able to really begin to focus on the issues that really matter to me: making art that is about a/the material body and the mental/emotional space that partners with physical embodied experience.

Stuffed Blue Heart (detail)

Ink and twine on paper mounted on board

In process

I began to add more and more design elements to this piece, which I think looks good, but was actually taking away from the simplicity of what I’m trying to convey. I love decoration (see my graphic design work), so it has been hard to let go of wanting to decorate everything with color and little graphic elements.

 Stuffed Blue Heart (detail)

Ink and twine + gouache on paper mounted on board

In process

Gary Simmons, workshop leader, suggested that I was using the painting surface as a crutch, because it’s something I’m comfortable with. Perhaps that’s true. He asked me if I really should be doing sculpture at this point, to which I responded ‘probably, yes, but that makes me uncomfortable.’ . . . So, here I go, abandoning the painting surface and moving my work directly onto the wall (look for that work tomorrow, it’s not finished yet!).

Stuffed Blue Heart

Ink and twine on paper mounted on board

In process

When this piece is finished, knotted twine will billow and spill out from all the holes in the center of the painting, creating a three-dimensional effect. You can see that the piece is really about the action in the center, and I need to get rid of the background completely.

Anderson Ranch + Critique Workshop / Part 2

Holes and Protrusions

Studies for twine

This week at Anderson Ranch, I’ve been working back and forth between using my inks and working with twine. You can see yesterday’s ink work here.

This series of studies is looking at ways to utilize the membrane of the paintings’ surfaces as something that can be penetrated in different ways with the twine (plus perhaps other materials).

Holes and Protrusions

Studies for twine

Tomorrow I’ll show you how the two (ink & twine) are starting to combine in new ways for me. The jury is still out on whether my experiments are going to be a success.

Anderson Ranch + Critique Workshop / Part 1

Self-portrait on a blank sheet of paper

Digital photograph

This week I’m at Anderson Ranch Art Center in Snowmass, Colorado taking the Contemporary Studio Critique workshop with Gary Simmons. It has been interesting so far: Monday was spent going through a preliminary overview and general critique of the ten students’ work up to the present moment. Today, we’ve been working on our own and have had individual discussions with Gary.

Self-portrait on a painted sheet of paper

Digital photograph

I usually work on several different artworks at once, and it’s no different at Anderson Ranch this week! I have 6 pieces going already, and it’s only the second day of the workshop, and that’s not including the process photos  above and the video you’ll see below.

The painting with quivering aspen leaves

Digital video

I’m always interested in conveying some sense of spiritual energy in my art, whatever the media. Today was the first time I took my inks outside to work (I didn’t want to smoke everyone out of the studio with my rubbing alcohol), and now I wonder why I never did it before! I set up shop on a wooden balcony that sits on the edge of a rushing creek. The first thing I noticed were the shadows cast by the aspen leaves overhead, and how they moved over my empty sheet of paper. Then, again, as I worked on my painting, the little quivering shadows surely must’ve influenced my composition. I decided to shoot a quick video of the shadows dancing on top of the painting.

I’ll show you some of the other stuff I’m working on tomorrow. Stay tuned!