as calm as a fruit stand in new york and maybe as strange

SO in the last three months I got married, moved to New York City, started graduate school, and eaten about three thousand avocados. 

After reading relevant literature all day (which included a PubMed search for "human feces"- I'm studying colitis here) I re-discovered secondary structures like this:

which is a piece of this "tertiary structure":

FOR THE NON-SCIENTISTS:

"primary structure" is the RNA sequence (for example: AAAUUGGGGGCGCAU)

"secondary structure" is the way that the RNA can bind to itself to make the types of complex shapes as seen in the first photograph

"tertiary structure" is the way the ribozyme (RNA with the ability to perform tasks like "helping" other reactions just as enzymes usually do) folds in three dimensional space

in other words, I'm back and making work again.

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.

this is it

It's so good to be back in a lab again. The first few weeks in a new lab are always tough but nothing compares to that unbeatable rush of doing something for the first time, for seeing something new: the same feeling I had as a kid when I first pulled a worm out of the ground or when I learned why the sky was blue or the grass was green.

Today I spent far too long doing an extremely simple task: move 5 worms from one plate to another. But as I sat there and chased those guys around the plate with my little apparatus, I had some of time to think about the connections between my art and science. It's a topic I'm afraid of in a lot of ways. It's a topic that makes me question everything that I think about myself as an artist and as a person (what are we if not perception-ists?). There are times I don't know if my science influences my work, runs my work, or is my work. I don't know if I should even try and stop it any more. More importantly, I start questioning why I make and why I don't just observe. But I can't stop. and sometimes that in itself has to be enough. 

Here are some images that bring out this apprehension: they are some of the most beautiful images I've collected and ones that I come back to again and again.

DNA at metaphase (when you can see chromosomes most clearly. it's the way we all pictorially think of chromosomes: as little Xs) without the proteins that hold it together. So, all of those loops are DNA strands. The skeleton is what the DNA usually holds onto to look like an X.

C. elegans

  

cross sections of C. elegans (1mm worms)

He War: finality

Love this. (found: wiki for hair)

The air is filled with so much anticipation. I love (don't tell) finals week. There's a camaraderie on campus: we're all exhausted, over-caffeinated, and almost there. It doesn't hurt that I tend to work much better under pressure, and subsequently do some of my best work at times like these. I like having my own, class-free schedule. I like feeling justified drinking the equivalent of my weight in coffee. I also like feeling finished: no more papers, no more tests, no more stress. Those few days between finishing a semester and heading home when there's just nothing to do: they're golden. I don't have to be the one always leaving to do work. I can just be. Then again, I can't wait to get home, to see my (and Tim's) puppies, to visit my usual spots, to go running through my neighborhood, to have my laundry done for me, to see homey faces, to watch copious amounts of hockey (go Wings!) and ultimately to travel to NYC for my fellowship and all of the things that come with that. I feel lucky enough to perpetually be looking forward, but on Friday when I'm finished with everything, I'll be happy just to be here and now.

I really think so

I like the complementarity between and Gordon Matta-Clark (b/w)  Tadashi Kawamata (color photos)

I think I can officially say that I find photography endlessly fascinating. Although it's not "my thing", I find successful photography absolutely mesmerizing, and the conceptual uses and applications are themselves interesting. 

Like Gordon Matta-Clark: most of his pieces exist only as photographs but they're not just documents- they're objects within themselves. The compositions are just as interesting (to me) as the sculptures he created, and the act of making these carefully crafted images became a work in itself. He is definitely one of my favorites. 

Plus, he loved puns, and I love puns... (I am dating a comedian, after all)

this tornado loves you

this is the busiest week.

found this via Etsy Finds:

 

http://www.racheltrobertson.com/

this is related to the things I'm doing, saying, feeling, thinking.

oh I believe in yesterday

tastesorangey

prettylittletheives

I'm now quite sure that what I'm attempting to communicate visually is nearly impossible to do successfully... but hopefully I'm getting closer. This weekend I started sewing onto paper again, and began to think about photographs, white, and all things that grow.

As of today, I've been thinking a lot about texture, thanks to pistachiopress' Rachael Hetzel who showed me some really interesting prints this evening. I hadn't even considered embossing the paper by hand. 

Lots to think about. On days like today I wish I could spend all of my time in the studio. and I'm still not sure if this is an "e-sketchbook" or something for general consumption. and I can't wait to start printing again. (but) there is so much to do.

everybody hurts sometimes

I'm sick and feel awful so I decided to paint over some practice prints

(APs) and watch Art 21.

[distraction > laying around feeling sick]