fever to tell

Olivia Jeffries 


I'm always interested in this aesthetic. I like beautiful things. I like thinking about why things like this are beautiful. I like time. I like delicate things. I like pieces of her artist statement about things that move her: "the complex and unknowable nature of reality, an intimate moment which exists for just a second and is then forgotten or the impossibility of feeling how someone else feels..."

and you still refuse to speak

empty vessels

my secret self: you can't always be friendly, there just isn't time

In short: I don't like all of her pieces but I like thinking about them.

hey-ay-ay-ay

Anthony Zinonos

what a great name.
found him during my 3.0 minutes of free time today... enjoy!

Figures 56 and 42

Pill Head

Triangle Exchange

Maybe it's just the weather, or the mood I'm in, or the stress that seems to permeate everything and everyone right now, but this stuff makes me laugh. Right now, I really appreciate the lighthearted handling of the subjects. Although I often tire of work similar to this-- Urban Outfitters-approved photocollage-- but this guy is honest in a way I don't often see... He doesn't hide anything, he's straightforward, and he manages to bring to light some great ideas. His work is satirical in nature but not extreme past the point of utility.

Lilac Wine

My drawings have stagnated... I need distance and time and patience. In the mean time, I've been making the mental switch back to painting.

I think one of the hardest and most important questions I ask myself and agonize over is why anyone should invest their time into looking at one of my pieces. I look to the art world, to communication, to process, and to the internet. I've been really interested in the physicality of paintings: a frame with stretched canvas, a wooden board, a piece of paper, a wall... As I searched through the sculpture and paintings section of MOMA's website, I came across...

Hannah Wilke. I don't quite know how I missed her before this. I have seen several of her works (online, in classes, in real life) but never attached a name and persona to the works as a whole.

 thanks for the photo, MOMA

Ponder-r-rosa 4, White Plains, Yellow Rocks

1973

thanks, HannahWilke.com

from her SOS Starification Series 

1974

I don't always love feminist work but I like her. I like her boldness. I like that she was nearly always topless (including during installations). I like that she made things that were both beautiful and meaningful and she used this beauty as part of the piece. Mostly, I like how much thought is evident in her pieces: I feel like the artist thought through every detail of her pieces far more than we could ever know.

They ain't ready for this one nephew

Heike Weber is a German artist who makes amazing pieces like this:

Mardin Kilim 2007

silicone

680x340 cm

Dorotheum 300

2007

permanent marker on vinyl floor

Utopia

2009

permanent marker on acrylic paint

I like this statement about her work:

" The foundation of her work is the idea of a neutral space whose potential is first realized through the drawing and is what consciously positions Heike Weber within the critically reflected tradition of Minimal Art. Judd's cubes, Andre's metal plates or Morris' serial objects had focused for the first time on the referentiality of art to its neutral environs... The reality of the room is confirmed, classically, stroke for stroke, line by line, only the next minute to be thrown out of sync. The gestural input, the physical working on a picture support that expands in all directions, seems to veer towards a momentum that now on its part appropriates the viewer. It is not the object on view that finds its irreconcilable and multi-angled visibility made manifest, but the ‘specific object' that strikes back. "

I feel it all, I feel it all

Untitled

ink on paper, 2005

Sometimes I do everything backwards. Some people have these great artists who they always admire and look up to and their work contributes to some sort of visual conversation with these great artists. That sounds awful to me. Instead, I make things and when I get down or confused or curious or excited I look around to find other people like me. Other people who use the same visual language, or the same medium, or the same scale, or with the same general concept (i.e. time, memory, classification, etc.).

As I was meandering around the internet, I found Katie Sehr.

I can see it. I can see her thinking about time, translation, and intimacy.
I like it. I like that they took forever to make. I like how purposeful they seem. I like the language she uses which is very similar to my own.

Untitled

ink on paper, 2005

30" x 29"

Strawberries in the Summertime

I went gallery hopping in DUMBO with a friend this weekend. To be honest, I didn't expect much... I thought it would be ultra-hip and less than inspiring... but I found an amazing gallery filled with prints and books! I think in the face of contemporary art making practices that I struggle with, prints, and books are a way for me to keep a foot in the traditional while exploring the contemporary. I got to think here. These are some images of pieces that challenged me or made me think more about my own art practices and themes.

Donna Maria de Creeft

Ellen Weiner- Blue History

Emily Martin- Siftings

Sarah Stengle- Five Fragments from a Forest Sanctuary

things just ain't the same for gangstas

I haven't made as much this summer as I should have.
I haven't looked as much as I wanted to.
I haven't gone as many places as I could have.
I haven't done a lot of things.

But I have done a lot of thinking.

I can't stop thinking that the summer's over when there's really four more weeks! four whole weeks!
I can't stop thinking about books, about science, about art, about art and science, and about art books and science.
I can't stop thinking of ways  to fix it.
I can't stop thinking about this coming year and these coming years.
I can't stop thinking about things that could go wrong.

The Intellectuals-August Sander

thanks, photoslide.blogspot.com

No cars, no mobiles, just sun and bread

After taking the GRE, giving presentations, and meeting one of my science heroes, I can actually feel the stress melting away. I'd like to believe that this will lead to more blogging, more sleep, and more sanity... but I doubt it. I can not believe I'm leaving this city in two weeks. There is so much left to do, see, explore, discover...

Anyway, here's what has been keeping my mind and hands busy the last week or so:

I'm adding some words to some of the negative space and honestly, I'm not sure how I'll feel about it a few weeks or months from now, but I've really enjoyed the therapeutic act of copying, tracing, and detail. Any and all thoughts and comments are welcome.

I'm losing my edge (to better looking people, with better ideas, and more talent)

Yesterday, I spent the day at PS1 with a friend that just graduated from our art department. We talked a lot about what art we like, what we make, and the discrepancies between our work and current "trends". I think this is something that people often don't talk about--I know I feel uncomfortable with the topic at times-- but something that needs to be discussed. Some of the work I saw yesterday (I really thought) was awful. It was devoid of context, conversation, or interaction with the viewer.

The number of "Untitled" works was infinitely frustrating. Why should the viewer spend time with your piece if you don't give anything back? If you are going to line up some objects against a wall that have no apparent similarities or interactions the honest viewer will walk right by and lose interest. The dishonest viewer will tell their friends they love it, and refuse to give any reasons-- saying things like "isn't it obvious?" or "well clearly you just don't get it".

Maybe I just don't get it. 

But if they provided a title, however abstract, I would be much more willing to give my time to a piece and really interact with it, try and extract something from it, if they provided ANY sort of context.

Don't get me wrong, there were pieces I really liked and enjoyed, but I feel, for whatever reason, that I need to challenge and discuss things that bother me about "the art world", if only to selfishly work through my own feelings about it. However, as I discussed previously, I feel there is a lack of honesty or forthrightness that is troubling in our contemporary art society. It frustrates and alienates "the average (interested) viewer" and as someone who views art as a form of communication, I find it appalling.

On a brighter note: here are some contemporary works I like and think work successfully around these complaints. They're the ones, in my opinion, who do it right.

(thanks, wired.com)

Isabella Rossellini

Green Porno

(thanks, PBS)

Alfredo Jaar

Also check out the "Lights in the City" project from 1999 under Recent Projects

(thanks again, PBS)

Laylah Ali

Read her profile at Art21.

You looked like a swimmer

After a few twelve hour work days, this is my first chance to post about my trip to the MoMA and The American Folk Art Museum last Friday. As I meandered about and inundated myself with the act of looking (as opposed to seeing, which we do all the time) I did something out of the ordinary for me and my sketchbook: I wrote about it.

I feel compelled to share it with you, if only out of a desperate desire for more honesty and more transparency between artists about their work and their process and their thoughts and their inspirations. Here are mine:

"I'm not sure if I'm on the right track or if I'm light years behind. As an artist, I must take comfort in the inherent uniqueness of my work being that it comes from ME and I DID IT. The things I like in these great works overlap with things I love in my own. Logically, I know this is normal, and possibly even a good thing. Themes and stories and patterns that occur and reoccur in art and history are great -- standing the test of time indicates that the content deals with questions of humanity-- yet, I find myself wondering how I can compete with the likes of ERNST and JESS and DALI? With the bookmakers, printmakers, and drawing-based artists who have years of experience, time, funding, training, patronage, and practice?

YET I CONTINUE TO MAKE.

I take comfort in the inherent me-ness of my work. I take comfort in the practice itself. and I take comfort in the knowledge that great artists make crap too, sometimes."

Here are some pieces I enjoyed and wanted to share:
Mona Hatoum (medium: paper and hair)

Rivane Neuenschwander- I love this. The colors, the idea, everything.

MAX ERNST and a biology poster. one of my most surprising finds. and strangely encouraging. (as in, if he can take an actual biology poster and dissociate it from its content this much, then I can definitely use organic-inspired elements and not have them just be illustrative)

I would love to hear your thoughts.

(all photos from MoMA's website)

A Spoonful Weighs a Ton

I've been spending an exorbitant amount of time looking lately: at the MoMA, at the Museum of Folk Art, on the street, and on the internet. Soon, I'll share some of those images with you, but for now... here are some artists I've been looking online whose work I'd like to share:

Chelsea Hertford Taylor

(nefertiti, left + joanie, right)

These watercolors are really fantastic: I can't wait to track one down and see it in person! Oftentimes, I find it a lot more difficult to discuss abstract images, and there's really no reason for it, but I'll try. (I'd love to hear some comments about these pieces or about that feeling of hesitation in front of an abstract work, if you have anything to chime in with!) I love the three dimensional quality these works contain. They're very clearly objects and not just swatches of color. The colors really compliment each other: they flow together, work together, and share the canvas.

Mel Kadel

The reoccurrence of this figure throughout her drawings takes the somewhat abstracted imagery and makes it somehow more personal, more of a representative of an unidentified struggle, and tells a story. 

If you find yourself caught in love

I've frequently run across Justin B. Nelson's work in my internet travels, and I think it's about time to share him with you all.

I'm currently obsessed with tying in my abstractions to something more tangible (side note: I do NOT believe that abstract works need to be tied to realistic images to be successful.. but in this very particular case my imagery would really benefit from an anchor). Nelson tries to do this in an interesting way. Relating abstraction to the figure can be a risky endeavor, and I admire his boldness.

Both photos from www.justinbryannelson.com/

His work is detailed and includes a lot of imagery I love: muscle striations, movement, pattern, abstraction, hair, noodles, and all things detailed and line-driven. I like that our work has similar elements but (at least appears to) come from completely different places and do completely different things.

Just something I've been digesting for awhile, I hope it has a similar effect on someone else out there.

IMPORTANT:

 you can find one of Nelson's pieces at My Love For You's Gulf Restoration Fundraiser! The fundraiser has collected beautiful works from tons of great artists.. and ends on the 5th! So hurry and snatch up some great works for an even better cause.

Soy su futuro ex novio(a)

I've been trying to inundate myself with pattern, delicacy, and intricacy: lace, henna, embroidery, skeletons, cross sections, and knitting. I'm close to what I want, I just have a few connections to make before I can get there. During this process, I ran across Vasco Maurao's work, shown below:

intricate, repetitive, obsessive, compositionally interesting, and hand-made (no computers!). I really like a lot of things about this work.

I attempted to contact him in Spanish today. Yikes. My conjugation skills are atrocious and my vocab has nearly slipped away. So I ended up saying things like: I go crazy for the drawings of yours! to get around all of the things I've forgotten.. which means it's time to break out the Rebelde y Belinda and brush up!

check out his Vasco Mourao's work here and there

The chills

I love Michele Bosak's new work.

These gouache paintings feel intimate, feminine, and well cared for. They remind me of some books I'm working on about texture. (Yes, books. Books are my solution to my lack of space and money problems thanks to my impending city livin' situation).

Speaking of... 

               I've finally decided on my narrowed-down list of supplies:

               1. This series continued

               2. Books books books 

               3. Watercolor posters: somethings I've been working on for awhile, really detailed line drawings that may or may not become non-traditional prints

               4. The Necessities: a sketchbook to hold all of the my ideas that will undoubtedly involve large, costly materials; pastels, because they fulfill my color mixing needs when I'm away from tried and true paint; and my small-but-nice pencil and pen set that I've accumulated over the years.

it's a lot, but compared to bags and bags of paint, unstretched canvas, paper brushes, lino supplies, and screen printing supplies, I'm totally content. All that stands between now-art-making and then-art-making are four paintings and time. I can't wait!

sweetheart I'm tellin' you

Today I editioned my last edition before semester projects end and summer projects begin. (Up next: PAINT!) Seeing my work from the past four or so months all laid out was both underwhelming and satisfying. I wish I had had more time: I wish I had done so much more. And yet... standing there, looking down on my eight precious editions, I felt like I made something that represented me as an artist. All I could think was, "I did it!". And then I ate my weight in pizza.

Today was also my last day with access to a press for a few months, and I have to say I'll miss it. As much as I love painting and can't wait to start on all of the projects I pushed back all semester, I'll miss printing. A lot. In the mean time, I've got my work cut out for me.

Happy Summer!

Important news: If you're in the Rochester, NY area this weekend, there are some amazing openings you should check out during First Friday: Jen Burger, Luke Shaw, Macie McGowan. I guarantee you will not be disappointed!

Also, Eva Xie has some beautiful work in University of Rochester's Art and Music Library, opening Thursday, May 6 4:30-6:30pm. Her work will be on display as a part of First Friday as well!

National Anthem of Nowhere

Michael Kareken

I think these are gorgeous. The unnatural natural landscapes are both confronting and neutral, ordered and disordered. I wish I could see one in person.










I miss painting. It's been a whole season without acrylics or oils. Watercolors don't feel the same to me: it's a whole different process. I miss my superstitions and the physicality of it all. This week in the studio has been fantastic. Non-stop printing, only pausing to let the ink dry, and I'm really happy with the results so far but soon and very soon I'm jumping back into giant, fabulous, messy, squishy PAINT.

Debaser

Today was gorgeous. A perfect public market morning followed by an afternoon filled with insane college students and an impromptu (well, only for me, I'm sure someone planned it) concert on the quad by OK GO (that band that has the treadmill video, pictured below), then an evening of writing, pretending to write, and art-related tangents. Tomorrow I'll be back in the studio, working on all of the things I want to be working on all of the time. I know it's far too early, but I keep daydreaming about my senior show: I want hundreds of perfect prints, and tons of paintings. I want to fill the gallery. I want everything to be beautiful, understated, overwhelming, and inspiring.

It's that time of year. The time of year when I just want to go.go.go and slow.slow.slow. When I am perpetually, simultaneously overwhelmed and extremely content. I love what I do. I feed on stress. I perform better when things are crazy.

But.. I look forward to when things slow down, when I can lay in the grass and just BE (happy, silent, with Tim, content, watching, thinking).

Yesterday I had the chance to present my research to my home community. I realized my favorite thing to do is explain the things we do to the people who say "oh, no, definitely not!" when I ask if they're familiar with biology. I get to show my excitement: then it BREAKS OUT and all the viral particles run wild, right!? (HIV-1 acute infection of CD4+T cells). I think most scientists become numb to the awe-inspiring nature of our work. Yet, I'm so humbled by and fascinated with the things we study, and more importantly, the things we don't know.

you and me baby, we ain't nothin' but mammals

I love detailed line work in prints, drawings, life, or anything! If it looks like it took one thousand hours to make, I will probably like it. As such, I'm really attracted to hair, muscle striations, and fabric patterns, among other things. 

In short: I look at things like this a lot.

that what? that life is hectic

I had a great conversation today about one of my favorite photographers, August Sander, and I thought I'd share it with you.

If you haven't heard of him: He documented society as he saw it, in all of its forms. The Weimar Republic was a hodge podge of ideas, parties, and people. It's the name we've given the government between 1919 and Hitler's rise to power and the culture was populated by many artists and thinkers we still recognize today. It was home to Walter Benjamin, Bauhaus, Brecht's theater, Gödel's answer to Hilbert's second problem, Shoenberg's compositions, and Heisenberg (may have) come up with his uncertainty principle there. Sander decided to document this tumultuous time period and the diversity of his space and place.

He is known for his work representing all levels of society (the elite, middle class, workers, and outcasts) but I've chosen some of my favorites, which all happen to be working class people or outsiders.

 

The Bohemians, The Boxers, and Circus People

If anyone's feeling generous... I'd lovelove a copy of his giant book, People of the Twentieth Century.

I say blah blah blah

It's been a tough day. Hell, it's been a tough month. I'm leaving 4:30am Wednesday morning to catch a flight to Montana to participate in this years' NCUR. My dishes are stacked up, lists are long, laundry has remained undone for far too long, I'm behind in my printing, and I really miss the comfort of being around Tim. Times like this I really crave home; home where I can sweet-talk my mom into doing my laundry and I'm within walking distance of slurpees at any time of day.

I've really Lemoned things up. (people don't really say that, do they?)

On the brighter side: I've never been more convinced that I want to spend all of my time in the studio and in the lab, I got to go home for Easter, and the cold weather curtails my impulse to lounge in the sun, thereby increasing my productivity. Also, I re-found Peter Sutherland. Set 5 is... familiar, which is really comforting right now.