too excited to not post!!!

so the award ceremony for the juried art show at my school took place today. the art show includes pieces from students all over connecticut. i couldn't make it to the awards ceremony because i had to work, but i just found out that i won something!!! i'm not sure what yet, but i heard it was a women's award?? i'll find out more details tomorrow when i'm there.

here's a photo of me with the series i submitted:

hehehe!!!

floaty triangles

my life:

-hard edge abstraction assignment. has lead to me painting triangles. 1", 2", 3", 4" in size. different colors. floating, hovering triangles in a plain of mushy, thick off-white oil paint. with shadows. but the painting has been a journey since the beginning. it sounds simple. like pre-school "you want what? hard edge abstraction?! fine i'll just paint triangles." it's been an adventure. let me tell you. first, a messily applied coat of gesso (thanks to sky--i say this firstly because i would never apply gesso sloppily; secondly because if he hadn't applied it in the first place, i believe it would be a far more boring painting. or at least a completely different one). secondly, i spray painted over that a boring hue of blue. thirdly i used stencil i made and applied the triangles with a pencil. BORING! so i made the background super thick to disguise the texture of the gesso. then the triangles came to exist but they had to stand on their own.
etc.


-i have a show in july at the art store a block from where i live. i saw the owner today. he said he's been working on publicity and that lots of people should know about it and he also might want me to go on this local tv channel about artists and i guess give an interview? about my show? i think? so that's happening.

-I WISH TO GOD i had more time. i wish i didn't have to spend the majority of my time at some job at the coop. sure i appreciate it. but i'd be lying if i said i didn't also resent it. i sorely wish i could devote most of my time to painting and developing that to be my primary income. it's a constant battle to give yourself the time you need to cultivate your passion. it's a constant battle. i NEED to get more organized.

Hard Edge Abstraction

I gotta say I wasn't too thrilled with the idea of doing a "hard-edge abstraction" piece for class. I tend towards gutsy expressionism, letting the paint go where it pleases and laying it on thick gushy in some areas, and thin and drippy and delicate in others, letting the paint take on a life of its own and speak for itself. So when the teacher gave us a lecture on hard-edge abstractionists, and about how meticulous and strategic their paintings are, I was lacking in enthusiasm. I decided to take a minimalist approach instead of a crazy intricate, Frank Stella approach.  And so these floaty, hovering triangles were born. I can't say this painting isn't gutsy in its own way, though. Apparently I have to tone down the background because of how crazy thick I laid it on. And if you see the triangles in person, you'd be able to see how even thicker than the background paint is, so thick that they appear to be their own objects sitting on top of the painting. 

Oh well. As the saying goes, you can take the girl out of expressionism, but you can't take expressionism out of the girl.... or something along those lines.

There is nothing I have to say. This song says it all.

collage

 spray paint, stencil, imitation gold leaf, xerox transfer of a gustav klimt painting, and acrylic paint on board.

spray paint, stencil, imitation gold leaf, acrylic paint and a xerox transfer of an egon schiele drawing.


i posted these on facebook and within half an hour people wanted to buy them. i feel like a big-shot. not really though. i've actually been struggling this semester. figure drawing is not easy. i have the same teacher for that class as i've had for most of my painting classes. he's a wonderful teacher and i really value his opinion. so it's sort of a wake-up call to suck at something in his class. 

art really is an ego destroyer when you're in a class with people who are a million times better than you. most of the time it doesn't bother me because i'm just little old me who is there to learn. but i guess it's getting to me slightly right now? otherwise why would i be writing about it? 

whatever. all i know is that making art is a good discipline if you want to remain humble.

creative purging

hello world. class started today. i'm taking painting for the fourth semester in a row. i might just keep going. i really don't care about anything else at this point, any other art class i need to take to reach my degree. i know it's good to add variety to my skill set, and necessary. but i'm too fixed on painting to want to try anything else. i'm too fixed. i don't want to leave it. i want to keep it close. i'm afraid to let go of it. so i'm sticking with it.

in related news ( i feel like a news anchor when i say that), i went to the wadsworth atheneum in hartford yesterday. IT WAS AWESOME. i went specifically to see patti smith's exhibit of her polaroid photos. i just read her book which was amazing. and that's a whole story in itself. i basically knew almost nothing about patti smith. but there was this strange occurance that involved synchronicity and "coincidences" that aren't really coincidences and shite. this book started popping up in my life when it came out, as it would in many people's lives of course.  but for some reason it spoke to me. it wanted me to read it. or so it seemed. this lasted for months. finally the apex of it all occurred when i was in a used book store in new haven one day right before thanksgiving. i wanted to look for something in particular, but i couldn't think of what. i texted my friend jessie, "what's a good book?" immediately after i sent the text, i remembered the patti smith book, so i went to go look for it. wasn't there. (but this book the art spirit was there which was amazing.) jessie called back about an hour later, long after i had left the book store. she said, "DUDE." then proceeded to tell me that she was reading this book the whole day, thinking of me in particular the whole time because it reminded her of me. of course she says it's just kids by patti smith. so then i respond "DUDE!" and told her my end of the story.

aaaaaanyway, that was a tangent and a half. my point is that i have photos. photos of many things. and that reminds me of something else i wanted to say about my museum trip: THERE'S AN ALICE NEEL THERE. it's a "new acquisition" so it wasn't there before. in case you don't know, alice neel IS MY FAVORITE PAINTER. i've never seen any of her paintings in person. i stood in front of it for a good 15 minutes, moved near to tears. i felt such awe and joy that i wanted to take it off the wall and hug it. instead i hugged it with my eyes (HA!).

the alice neel painting. siiiiiiigh

this was in the "comments" section of the museum.  there was a table and chairs and some colored pencils and you could make a comment. i LOVED this one on the bottom that some kid named noemie did. so i tried to emulate it above. ever since, i've come to the realization that i want badly to draw like a child.

so i went home and this is what happened.

Two Recent Commissions