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.

I heard a rumor

I feel obligated to let you all in on a secret...

I've got a few things in the works, and can't wait to share them as soon as they're finished.

In the mean time, blogging may decrease in frequency, but stay tuned!

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

all I want, are four walls

My cost-effective life still allows me to have some creature comforts. Here are a few of my future investments!

Gardening, apartment-style (and super easy). You can find these online, they're called "egglings"

Chalkboard paint: 1 cup paint, 2 tbs unsanded tile grout. Apply to a primed or painted surface.

(Thanks, Martha)

Recycled glass bottles made into drinking glasses. 

find them at YAVAglass on etsy, or other places like greenglass.com

I also love fruit in glass bowls.

photos from YAVAglass

thanks, 2000dollarwedding.com

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)

With the game and soul of an old school flick

I'm catching up! So. My birthday was last Thursday, two days before I left. Since then there's been a whirlwind of packing, leaving, loving, and running around. I do want to post this, if only so I remember it more vividly: I had the best birthday of all time.


My parents and I had lunch at Tom's Oyster Bar in Royal Oak followed by super delicious cupcakes from The Cupcake Station in Birmingham: so good!

my new birthday tradition: the pineapple delight cupcake. It has a real piece of pineapple inside!

Then I headed over to Tim's to help set up to have our closest friends over for a small, but perfect, celebration... Aussie-style! We made Australian burgers and had a plentitude of beers to choose from (it was my 21st after all) and after the BBQ we made a fire and all sat around, laughed, talked, played games, laughed, and had the most perfect night I could ask for. The next day I left for Rochester, spent a glorious day with good friends doing fun things (mostly walking around with Dory, the lovable long haired chihuahua), had dinner at my all-time favorite place: Dogtown, followed by an evening of games, music, friends, and fun. I got two perfect birthdays!

 

Bella and I sat on the porch while the guys got things done: I love having Boy Scouts around!

What are Australian burgers, you ask? We made two types: 

1) included cheese, fried egg, beets, sauteed onions, bacon, lettuce, BBQ sauce, burger, and bacon.

2) (pictured) same thing, but with turkey bacon and BBQ chicken. So delicious!

I love when things just work out the way they're supposed to. I love being able to say "the way it's supposed to". In conclusion: best birthday ever. Thanks for indulging me.

Here I am

I will catch up on blogging.
I will catch up on sleep.
I will enjoy every minute.
I will solve a scientific problem (no matter how minor).
I will look, listen, record, and absorb everything. everything!

But for now I have more pressing needs, like groceries and shampoo. Thanks for being patient. Till then, here's a piece of KillTaupe's drawing a day project. It was so great to meet him! Plus, I love the drawing-a-day obsessiveness. After giving myself the week off, maybe I'll be inspired and try to make a (very small, simple) book a week for the next ten weeks.