Personal Mapping Update

Over the last week, I have made several collages using themed images from my grandparent's backyard:

• my childhood playhouse
• the basketball goal
• beyond the fence
• 2 generations of banana trees

After editing the images in Photoshop, they are printed, cut and used for collages. Since photo transfers are a new technique for me, I am experimenting with various methods on boards before I move on to the papier-mâché forms. So far, I've worked with acetone, matte medium and Mod Podge. My mentor suggested to also try oil of Spike Lavender and Citra Solv.

I'm also experimenting with surface: unfinished wood, primed and painted panels and paper, in addition to the papier-mache forms that are my ultimate goal.

To finish off the paintings, I add text. A list in prose form of my own memories associated with the place depicted in the collage.

Work in progress

Work in progress

Inspiration for this work comes from...  

Tone and texture

Tintypes, particularly the one shown above that I saw at the Smithsonian Museum of American History

Treatment of figure and setting in portraiture

Gerhard Richter's Portrait Wunderlich

Use of narrative and text

Mary Kelly's Post-Partum Document

Figure and place imagery in collage

Romare Bearden's The Dove

Personal Mapping

I've been working on reintegrating the relief forms into my practice. Earlier this semester, I expressed a desire to use these works as an opportunity to map specific places and memories. This project has also evolved to document changes in the landscape over time. There have been significant changes in the construction and content of these forms.

1. Instead of using several layers of papier-mâché strips over the cardboard, I added one layer of strips and sculpted papier-mâché clay on top. With this method, I'm able to increase the level of detail and sculpt a gradually sloping form.

2. Instead of painting and embellishing the forms, I have created collages using archival and original photographs to transfer onto the surface. Although a couple of the collages are finished, I am still working on building up and smoothing the surface of the forms. This work is still in progress.

Candy Colored Creeks

It's been a while since I last posted. The end of the year brought a whirlwind of activity which culminated with my second residency. I have a lot of finished work to share, thoughts and feedback to process and plans to make for my future studio practice.The Candy Colored Creeks are a good place to start. This series began as an attempt to merge my sculpture and painting practices and also process childhood memories. Over the course of the semester, I used imagery inspired by my grandmother's backyard and experimented with different ways to use color, surface, texture and form to create objects that symbolize my experience in that landscape as an 8 year old. I'm happy with the direction the work is going in and feel that there is a lot left for me to explore here, which I fully intend to do. 

After several conversations during the residency, including those with my previous and current advisors, Laurel and Kamrooz, my plan is to explore the following:

• Think of each work as a time capsule
• Build a specific visual and tactile language to depict memories.
• How can I synthesize sensory experiences to build narrative?

• Can I use tile format to build content?
• A square foot is a very specific unit of measure used to depict space, can I use this format more deliberately to tell a story?
• Is square format necessary? If not, experiment with different formats and scale.

• These works belong on the wall rather than a pedestal or table, but I need to determine why I feel that way.

• Experiment with working in a way where process/material is more transparent.

Candy Colored Creeks and Lollipop Trees...an update

Lollipop Trees #1 with pours and dots completed

Last week was a little short but progress was made on four of the painted object pieces. I finished pouring dots on the lollipop tree piece. This week I plan to wrap this up by adding a pattern to the flat area to the right of the composition. As I look at this piece now, I find myself feeling it should already be complete. The squared-format of the picture plane seems to take away from the overall composition. I've already started cutting out new shapes to build a form that doesn't depend on a square plane as a base.

Finished texture on Creek #4

An in progress shot of glazing on Creek #3

A detail of the completed glazing on Creek #3

In the last post, I talked about building up texture on two forms. I finished the texture on both forms last week. I also started staining the first one with layers of glaze. I started with a layer of green, then alternated layers of blue and green with some yellows in the highlights. Overall, I ended up with 7 layers. It is a little darker than I intended but I feel that I have enough depth now to add the final, bright green pour. This week the plan for the second form will be to glaze it in a similar fashion. Using what I learned from the first one, try starting with light washes and do not add dark hues too soon. 

More bead patterns on Creek #1

Finally, the beads again. I'm really going to push to finish at least one side this week. That's a pretty optimistic goal but I'm sticking to it.

To recap, my painting goals for the week are to...

• Finish lollipop trees
• Build 2 new lollipop tree forms
• Finish 2 candy colored creek glaze paintings
• Build 3 new creek forms, slightly smaller, without relying on a square plane
• Finish 1st half of the beaded creek painting

Candy Colored Creeks and Lollipop Trees

I've been spending the majority of my time working on the painted objects this past week. The lollipop trees are nearing completion. After laying on several layers of under-painting, I started working on layers of poured paint over the trees. The underlying structure has too much depth for me to control the pours with much accuracy. As a result, I was pretty much stuck with whatever happened. At first this was highly frustrating, then I decided just to go with it. Removing the tape allowed paint to run off of the trees and pool wherever it ended up. The pattern that emerged after the pink pours was very interesting so I decided to stop there. Feeling the need to experiment even more, I started adding layers of dots on the flat surfaces at the top of each form. The original impression/memory that inspired this piece involved watching the wind blow through the trees behind my grandmother's house. The way the light shimmered off of the vibrating leaves gave me a sense that the trees were alive and breathing. My goal was to create a static object that embodied that kind of kinetic energy. At the moment the plan is to complete the dot layers, then add some texture in the form of a grass pattern in the negative space on the right side of the composition.

After 1st 2 pours

After 3rd pour

Building up dots

A detail of pooled paint

I completed and gessoed two forms from a previous post. This week I worked on building up the surface texture a bit. These two pieces will be monochromatic. I plan to cover one with layers of stain to emphasize the surface texture. The other will be finished off with a pour on top of the stain. I also worked on making a new piece.

This will be the 3rd form in the series

A detail of the 4th in the series

New piece to papier-mache next week.

Finally, the beads....not much new to report with that piece. Still pushing forward. I'm starting to vary the size and color of the beads more; creating a patterns of concentric circles within the overall pattern.

Sand, Ruins & Kintsugi

I approached this sand paining from a different perspective. Rather than thinking of the depicted space as a bird's eye view pattern, I focused on topography as a tactile experience. I asked myself what would the landscape feel like if I could run my hands across it. Thinking of its surface as a skin or cloth over an underlying structure, I had to consider the experience of each curve and form individually. As I did this, each area took on unique characteristics that resulted in a less unified but more dynamic composition. 

When creating the ruins for this work, I thought about the practice of Kintsugi. Gold is used to repair broken pottery creating an unpredictable, decorative pattern. The philosophy behind this practice contends that when an object is damaged and repaired; it is not thought of as a destructive process but rather an important part of the object's history. So instead of creating a series of mound structures and building around them, I thought of the ruins as a rolling plain of fractured parts that required a network of seams to mend the landscape back together in a different way.

Painting More Landscapes

I've finished the first piece in the series of object/painting hybrids I've been posting about. Although happy with the result, there are still a lot of things I want to try. In previous weeks, I was concerned about how these pieces connect with my other work. The subject matter, the creek/stream motif, is a reoccurring theme in my paintings and sand work this semester. In these paintings, I've incorporated colors culled from popular culture, toys and memories from my childhood. Both the paintings and sand work also emphasize making, process, repetition and attention to surface texture. 

In reading *Notes on Camp by Susan Sontag, I discovered an affinity between my work and her description of Camp art. I was particularly interested in her observation of Camp having the tendency towards "decorative art, [...] texture, sensuous surface and style at the expense of content" (278). Although I would argue that my work is not quite free of content, I would agree that form outranks content. Sontag goes on to say that, "Camp introduces a new standard: artifice as an ideal, theatricality" (280). This statement perfectly encapsulates my goal of presenting nature as artifice. 

I really like the interplay of light and shadow on the first painting. In fact, I plan to use one of the new objects to further explore monochromatic painting. The bead work on the 2nd painting is moving very slowly but so far I'm happy with its development. I've been building up layers of color on the lollipop trees painting and will eventually pour layers of glaze on top of it. I have two new objects to gesso today and one new object ready for papier-mache. The next step in this series will be to build objects that will be organic in form and not limited to the square format that I've been working with.

*Sontag, Susan. “Notes on ‘Camp.’” Against Interpretation and Other Essays. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1966. 274–292. Print.