Clare Leighton. Depression Era Wood Engraver and Printer

Clare Leighton. Depression era wood engraver and printer. Her depictions of urban poverty and desperation are contrasted by other images that reflect a nostalgia for farm life. #Clare Leighton #Engraving #landscape #art #depression era

Grant Mudford’s American Landscapes

Grant Mudford's #photographs of the #American #landscape have captured my attention today. These images illustrate the residue of human intervention on the land. In some ways its as if the native landscape ceases to exist. If there's nature in the photo at all, it's relegated to the margins and the background. These images aren’t joyous — I get a sense of melancholy, maybe a touch of nihilism. I think the symmetry and geometric formal qualities in these three photographs enhance those feelings. The artifacts depicted in these landscapes are monumental, almost bigger than life, but they seem deserted, unloved, left behind. I always say that people are like rats. We populate a space and make huge messes; in a way we’re nesting I guess. Then, when the mess becomes intolerable, we move on to someplace else. Now that we’ve pretty-much taken over any habitable place on the planet (and some uninhabitable ones too), we don’t have anywhere else to go. What happens now? I don’t know. #photography #landscape #grant mudford #America 1 note

Rain at Night

This is what I have heard at last the wind in December lashing the old trees with rain unseen rain racing along the tiles under the moon wind rising and falling wind with many clouds trees in the night wind after an age of leaves and feathers someone dead thought of this mountain as money and cut the trees that were here in the wind in the rain at night it is hard to say it but they cut the sacred 'ohias then the sacred koas then the sandalwood and the halas holding aloft their green fires and somebody dead turned cattle loose among the stumps until killing time but the trees have risen one more time and the night wind makes them sound like the sea that is yet unknown the black clouds race over the moon the rain is falling on the last place —W.S. Merwin, from The Rain in the Trees, 1988 1 note

Learning the Laser Cutter

Laser cutting is a PITA. I should’ve predicted that the machine would be super finicky! I guess I have to keep practicing. #laser cutting #design 1 note

Loving the Metal Shop!

I’ve been spending a ton of time at @makerhaus working in the metal shop. I’m a perfectionist, so this wine rack that I thought would take only a day or two has ended up taking more like three or four weeks! I’ve learned to use almost every tool in the shop: lathe, milling machine, bandsaw, stomp shear, drill press, belt sander, tap & die, and MIG welder. This project is more of a design problem than an art piece, which is nice — I like going back and forth along the edges. These photos illustrate my process of making a wine rack from scratch. I wish I had thought to take a photo of the raw materials before I started working on them. I had a 2 foot long aluminum round bar, a flat steel bar, a smaller rod for making my own screws, and a couple scraps of pipe. When I was making my own screws and threading the steel bar, I got impatient and broke the tap off inside the bar. I ended up going down to Tacoma Screw and troubleshooting with the awesome guys who work there. They didn’t mind teaching me a little bit. (I’ll definitely go back there if I ever need more advice or tools and whatnot.) I really love the metal shop. The work there feels so substantial and utterly physical. I’m especially enjoying the contrast against my graphic design job which is sitting at a desk staring into a screen most of the time. I hope to be finished with this by next week so that I can start working on my next project — which is going to involve a ton of welding! #welding #metal shop #wine rack #pnca

American Landscape Painting in the 1800s

I’ve been reading a lot about Americans’ attitudes towards landscape/nature over the past 200-ish years. In the 1700’s it seems that painting landscape just wasn’t something that was considered acceptable. It wasn’t until the very late 1700’s that Americans realized that they had something uniquely different from Europe, and they began to (sort-of) celebrate it. Romanticism was in its heyday during the first half of the 19th Century, and the paintings pictured above were created during this time. Many artists during this time wanted to celebrate pastoral nature, the agrarian landscape, evidence of the people’s control over the land for production purposes. They weren’t quite ready, it seems, to depict full-blown wilderness in a positive light, as it was still dangerous and frightening. In these images, we see lots of human activity on the fringes between wilderness and civilization. Urban development was looked down upon as well as wilderness. The rural farm life was seen as the most virtuous. Cities and industry were depicted far in the distance, with these pastoral and leisurely images in the foregrounds. Picnics and farms were common subjects during this era. #landscape #painting #art #America #Thomas Cole #Winslow Homer #Alvan Fisher #PNCAmfa

Ellen Sollod: Studio Visit

Ellen Sollod is an amazing, thoughtful, and generous Seattle #artist. I had a fantastic studio visit and lunch with her today! Learned all about the trials and tribulations of working in the world of public art. #publicart #studiovisit

What I’m Reading Now

The stack of books I’m sifting through these days. #art #landscape #nature

View from Mount Waterman

View from the top of Mt. Waterman in the Angeles National Forest. What a fantastic day!

Drawing in a Friendship Garden

I created this afternoon intervention in the park today. I loved the meditation of walking around and around this tree to envelop it with my attention. Then the meditation continued afterwards as I walked around the tree an equal number of times to disassemble the piece. #contemporary art #installation #nature #landscape 9 notes

The Drawing that Makes Itself — Variation 07

Here are some more images from my recent series of Drawings That Make Themselves in the Sierra National Forest in California. That granite is such a great substrate for the drawings. I would love to go back and do more of these drawings sometime.

Variation number 07 was about how the liquid transfers from one surface angle to another.

The Drawing that Makes Itself — Variation 06

For this variation, I decided to see how the drawing would look when I mix colors. Having all the extra liquid also created a much bigger drawing. I enjoyed the longer, more meditative process.

This is my favorite set from the Drawings That Make Themselves. I am really excited that they were chosen for the Tool at Hand PDX exhibition at The Museum of Contemporary Craft in Portland. Check out the images in person before the end of January 2014!

The Drawing that Makes Itself — Variation 05

This is number 05 in a series of ephemeral landscape drawings that make themselves. I love setting something free and seeing how it behaves on its own — like a controlled chaos almost. 

I'm getting more and more excited about working outside in the landscape. Interjecting artificial, almost psychedelic colors into an environment filled with earth tones creates a tension that reflects the collision of urban civilization and natural landscapes. I created these drawings in the Sierra National Forest just south of Yosemite.