A few weeks ago I installed artwork at Skylight One Hanson for the Renegade fair in Brooklyn. It was so great to be in the company of great creative makers.
Newsletter clipping from Renegade
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
On my reading radar
I really enjoyed this book. A know a bunch of people that weren't that into it but I think she says a lot of things that need to be said and not in a combative or condescending way. She's able to point out ways in which women can further themselves in the workplace and talks about the work/family balance. Maybe it's the women's college student in me (woo MHC) but this book has really made me feel good, gung-ho, and assertive. Ladies, it's okay to be awesome.
2. Francis Bacon by Phaidon
I love Bacon's color sense and fluid brushwork. A lot of his works are grotesque but still appealing.
3. Interwoven Globe
This is the catalog from the Metropolitan Museum's textile show (up now! go see it!) and the catalog is so chock full of amazing textile imagery. It has even more than the actual show so if you don't get to see the show in person at least check out this catalog. Also, it's bound in real fabric so heyyyy.
4. Inside the Studio: Two Decades of Talks with Artists in New York
I always find artist writings and essays so interesting. Also I really enjoy reading transcribed interviews so if you're into that then this book it right up your alley. Everyone's in here from Louise Bourgeois to Polly Apfelbaum. Interesting to read how artists talk about their work.
5. The Paris Review Book Of...
Haven't read this yet but looking forward to it-- might even buy myself a copy. I love short stories and excerpts.
6. Draw It With Your Eyes Closed
My friend Kevin told me about this book. It compiles real assignments and classroom experiences from freshman to advanced classes. Some really funny/ outrageous stories in here. After teaching a winter session course at RISD last year (bookbinding) this would have come in handy.
and finally....
I can't believe it took me so long to read Agnes Martin's writings. This was recommended to me by Jordana at Textile Arts Center and I love Agnes' essays. So calming and wise. I was thinking about buying a copy but since it's out of print you can't get one for less than $100 but here's an online version (you're welcome)
Saturday, November 16, 2013
Last Sunday, The Cloisters
Fort Tryon Park
even the 190th street subway station was pretty
15th century Italian chasuble
this stone guy was my favorite
I've been wanting to go to The Cloisters for the past year but I finally made it out with my friends Aggie and Erica. It was a little bit of a cloudy day but it added to the medieval drafty castle feel of the place. The Janet Cardiff sound installation, Forty Part Motet, was excellent (link below) and felt very spiritual and communal. The 40 individually recorded voices echoed perfectly and powerfully off the stone walls. You really felt enveloped by the voices and the experience.
Also I enjoyed all the meticulously made objects on display. I kept imagining people from the 15th century and even earlier producing such works and using them. There were some amazing tapestries and textiles as well as precious metal pieces. Really inspiring. It was fun to see how the objects were arranged too.
Thursday, November 14, 2013
Last Saturday, Chris Burden at the New Museum
views of manhattan from the sky deck
Kevin and Yifan were in town from Boston so we went to the Chris Burden show at the New Museum. This was my first time seeing a retrospective in this space but I thought Chris Burden did a great job filling the 4 or 5 floor spaces with a balanced combination of installation, video, and documentation (including his BEAM DROP work). I wish I could have taken a photo of his gold bar and matchstick men (yes, literal matchsticks made to look like men) but it was guarded and only viewable one at a time up a narrow set of stairs (gold bars look a lot smaller than you'd think). Definitely recommend checking this show out.
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Monthly music: NOV13 mix
Image from my trip last weekend to the Cloisters-- more images to come
These have been my studio jams for the past few weeks. Click through to listen to the whole playlist! Let me know what you think. What's been on your playlist lately?
Track list so far:
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
studio talk: Kevin Frances' New Apartment, New City Series
So happy to share my friend Kevin Frances' latest series with you. We met at RISD two years ago and since then he's been in a slew of shows, most recently at Kala Institute in CA and IPCNY. He's an extremely talented and thoughtful printmaker/ installation artist that you should definitely know about. Go see his work in person and hear him speak tomorrow at IPCNY: tomorrow 7-9pm as part of print week NYC. Can't wait to see what's next.
images/ Yifan Frances, Kevin Frances
Describe a typical studio day for you:
While I'm conceiving a project, my studio practice is very erratic, writing notes, making coffee every half hour, twiddling my thumbs; it's a very stressful time, very inefficient. However, once I settle into an idea, I become very focused and regimented; right now I'm printing, so every day I'll come in and print one layer. Mix the inks, dampen the paper, dampen the block, test prints, prints on good paper (14 in the edition now), wash brushes, hang up rags to dry. It's very physical, it takes about five or six hours, but I'm totally wiped afterwards.
What are three words to describe your artistic practice best?
Physical, exacting, fundamental. Now, that's how I feel about the making of the work, not really what I want to get out of it. I hope that in a way my toiling disappears, the work the feels natural and easy.
Artists you look to for inspiration?
A few artists I always come back to are Milton Avery and Wayne Thiebaud. On a second tier, I would say Robert Gober, David Hockney, and Giorgio Morandi.
You have an upcoming show and artist talk at IPCNY featuring several
woodblock prints. How did you get into woodblock printing and how
would you describe your most recent series?
I started making woodblock prints when I was in undergrad. At the time I was making these cast concrete sculptures, big honking minimalist ripoffs. I made these prints that were just the silhouettes of objects, something about the solidity and texture of the printed shape seemed to sum up everything I loved about the cast concrete, and added color!
In my current project, New Apartment, New City, I constructed a scale model of the interior of an apartment, and created a fictional character to inhabit it. This was my first foray into full on story telling, so I worked very intuitively; a narrative evolved as I built the objects in the space. The character buys furniture at IKEA, starts a job, has a dinner party. The story became an open-ended question about how we shape our adult persona, what it means to be ordinary, how we form our assumptions about other people, as well as our perception of reality and fiction.
You have a definite knack for story telling... Where did that stem
from and how does it fuel your practice?
I've always loved reading, and I would say the specific works of art that have moved me the most have been books. Growing up I wanted to be a writer... but I hate writing. It's the worst, I couldn't spend my life doing that! I know some famous writers have said they hate writing... whatever. I've never bought that line, "I'm an artist because I couldn't do anything else."
Anyway, I guess I'm trying to channel my inner writer through my own visual vocabulary.
Tell us about Find & Form space and how that evolved:
Find & Form Space is a pop-up gallery that I organize in Boston. We hold exhibitions once a month on first Fridays. It started out on a lark; the owners of this space like art and wanted to use their space to do something on first Fridays, and I thought, "Hey I know a lot of artists, how hard could it be to throw some shows together?" Well it turns out it's a little more work than that... but I've found it really rewarding to be able to promote artists whom I admire. We've had two group shows so far, and in the future we'll have some performance/installation projects, solo shows, and hopefully other things like lectures, panel discussions, maybe a pop-up library.
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
Monday 11/4/13: Wet Felting
Wet felting is a pretty awesome process. It requires only a few things, namely warm water, soap, fiber (in our case we did both wool and alpaca), and a heat source. We used our hands for a lot of gentle agitation and worked up to "throwing" and "rolling" in the final stages of finishing our little bowls and swatches. We TAC residents were lucky enough to learn from Adrienne from State the Label. She teaches felting regularly at TAC and is doing a holiday workshop that sounds so fun.
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