Back in the saddle

Hey everyone!

I was shocked and appalled to see I had not written on this blog since late May...despicable! I had thought it had been much more recently.

Since showing at the Bowery Gallery in their Annual Competition in July of this year, I've been focused on improving my studio practice and getting a better space. I felt a need for a little radio silence to focus on broader issues, so I didn't have quite the same intent to write on the blog. However, I didn't realize so much time had passed.

A better painting area has now been established which will result in more work and also more opportunities to write. I'd like to get back to the original intent of this blog and share my thoughts or feelings about being a young painter in the world. I will try to write at least monthly or bi-weekly on expectations of myself and the art world, as well as the progress of my personal and professional goals.

One of my life goals as an artist was to see U2 in concert. I know it sounds random, but as a creative persona in my life, they practically raised me. When I think about what an artist should be - personally, professionally, etc. - I think of U2. They work constantly, associate themselves with great projects, maintain their health, and keep a positive attitude about life and working. In addition to all this, they continue to set the standard of what rock stars should be not only in their spectacular tours but in the quality of their music. They push their talents and experiment as much as possible.

Earlier in the year, I made the leap and bought tickets for their 360 tour. I couldn't believe I actually possessed U2 tickets but I did and couldn't wait for the day.

September 20 - Gillette Stadium - 9:05pm. Finally I got to see them.

It was truly life-affirming. Even being stuck in traffic en route was actually inspiring. All these headlights lining up ad infinite tum, gathering to see 4 guys on a stage. It is miraculous that the talent and brains of 4 Irish guys can gather thousands of people, make them endure all sorts of stress and rigor, just to be close to them and near their talent. As a young artist it is absolutely inspiring to see that good work can still have such a profound effect on the masses, that quality and work ethic still mean something.

The show was beautiful, to say the least. They played all my favorite songs; both classics and songs from the new album. I suppose it all could have been an act, but the band, especially Bono, seemed truly touched by how moved and passionate the crowd was. I'm sure it never gets old: having 68, 000 people recite back to you lyrics you toiled over years ago, while you hang out with your best friends on a huge stage of your creation, and travel the world. They had big smiles on their faces the whole show, and their voices were in peak condition. There were no technical flaws, no screw-ups or missteps. They must have rehearsed endlessly, and with 30 years of performing under their belts, they nailed the theatrics of the night to a T.

Speaking of T, they made references throughout the night to Boston things; the T, Oak Grove, Boylston, being Irish, etc. and of course the crowd went nuts. Nice touch.

U2 - such a small name for such a big band. I'll never forget it for the rest of my life. To see such power and talent make such an impact on so many people was the most inspirational thing I have ever experienced. If my work can someday create a small fraction of the impact that U2 has with their work, I'd be one happy painter.

The Big Show at Silas Marder Gallery

Hi there!

I know its been a while since I've written, but the last few months have been about hiding in my studio and working. I'm so glad I did!

Sometimes when you clear your head and focus, that's when great things happen. You open up your vision and positive things come to you. My studio practice was getting pretty challenging earlier in the year, but I was determined to work through it. For some that is not the solution, but for me that is always the one thing I can rely on to get me through tough times - the work.

One day, I was pleasantly surprised to see an e-mail in my inbox. Silas Marder Gallery was inviting me to do three new pieces on canvases they would provide, 8 x 10 each. Any subject, any composition, as long as it was uniquely my own work.

Wow.

I was so excited. It was so flattering and fantastic to be invited to a group show AND to be asked to make new work. Somehow, despite my struggles in the studio at the time, I knew exactly what to do. I gathered my resources, reviewed all my photos, and went back into all my memories. I found 3 perfect images, and got ready to work.

Every weekend, I worked as hard as I could to chip away at these pieces. Every weekend was a new layer of paint onto the canvas, and the concept of an ideal studio practice coming all the closer.

Its always the fantasy: you're working away in your little corner of the world and the world comes to you, invites you to play. Its easy to hide in this corner and if no one comes, you never play. I am thankful for this invitation. It reminds me of all the interesting opportunities there are in the world, and how important it is to play.

Here are the details of the show...

The Big Show

Silas Marder Gallery
Bridgehampton, NY

Opening Reception:
May 30th, 4-9pm

May 30 - June 24, 2009

See the pieces here.

I feel very renewed after this project, very restored. In fact, I just ordered new stretchers, canvas, and a big roll of watercolor paper.

I'm ready to play.

Shepard Fairey at the ICA

As someone who considers herself an urban landscape artist, I was ecstatic for Shepard Fairey's first solo museum show, up now at Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art. (Click here for their site). Any artist who is in the area for the duration of the show (up until Aug 16) and has work even remotely related to the urban landscape, americana, politics - and also values strong composition - can benefit from visiting this show. Fairey's obvious work ethic alone is enough to inspire anyone. The sheer quantity of work is daunting. I know for a fact I will visit the show again only because one visit did not afford me what I needed to take in all the work. (Click here for a great Globe review).

The show seemed to be structured by intent, beginning with subversive, rebellious imagery, than building toward more complicated, well-financed pieces. Each room becoming more brazen in content, more ballsy in approach and more daunting in composition. The layering, the color, the design of each piece is carefully thought-out. Even with assistants, a show of this magnitude took planning, and dedication. How do you present a rebel in the structure of a museum? How do you maintain his rebellious tenor yet elevate his message to a volume anyone can hear?

In a word: guerilla marketing. The ICA was brilliant to aid Fairey in plastering Boston with posters, stickers and banners of his work. They have no signature, not signage, only the works themselves dropped from the sky onto the skin of a cold city. The picture above is of a very large, billboard-size banner of Fairey's at our Government Center, a place commuters pass by the thousands each day.

A fantastic side-effect of this marketing was Fairey being arrested for it. What better way to promote your show than to get arrested for promoting it!? After paying his bail and fine ($100), Fairey was released the next day.

However, these events are merely whispers behind the walls of an astounding show. Fairey is a master of color and screenprinting. I would argue he is a modern Kroninger or Muller-Brockmann (whom he references in a small poster in the last room, middle left). Although Fairey has MUCH more drama and anger in his work. He is genuinely upset with the state of things and uses overt puns and poetry in his graphic text to get his point across. It comes across alright...and pokes you in the eye!

I saw this exhibit with a friend who went to school in Providence when Fairey was also there attending RISD. He said he saw Fairey's "Andre the Giant has a Posse" stickers all over Providence years ago, but saw them so often that it wasn't a big deal. He had no idea that the person behind those stickers would one day be such a famous artist. His work was a part of the city, and no one seemed to mind.

I am honored that for these brief months, Fairey is part of my city.

I don't mind at all.

An Update

Hi! Its been far too long.

I wanted to write to let you know I've recently updated my website! (click here to visit). The drawings section has new drawings, and I've streamlined the design so it loads faster and you can enjoy the work more.

Since my last post, I have been drawing. Simply drawing. My thoughts have been on my family and finally adjusting to my new job so I have chosen to take a much needed break from painting. The holidays were a little stressful, but very enjoyable and restful at the same time. Since the beginning of 2009, I've reconnected with old friends, some artists among them. It has been so reassuring to know that to take a hiatus, as I have, is not only common, but wise. After speaking with several trusted colleagues, from all sorts of the backgrounds, they have expressed how important it is to "let the soil lie fallow," as it were. It is important, during the times when work and production is slow, to observe the world and meditate on what the year can bring you. Life can send great inspiration to your studio, but oddly enough, if you're toiling endlessly in your studio and dying of frustration, you may miss it.

Well, my drawing has rekindled my courage now and with the coming spring, I aim to see my studio refreshed and reborn. I truly see great things coming this year.

Jenny Saville and the Power of Influence

Two weeks ago, I attended the Jenny Saville artist lecture at Boston University, my alma mater. I got there as early as I could, but the line was already 5 people wide and ending about a hundred feet from the entrance. Saville's work has guided me through some of the roughest painting periods of my young career, so to meet her in real life, and hear her talk about her work was an opportunity I could not miss.

I have recently started a new job, and I'm sure we all know the rigor of those first few weeks at a new office. Its never clear how things will go, but you have faith that you're there for a reason. However, by the day of the lecture, I had only been at my job a week. So many feelings were going through my head: beginning a new job and phase of career; returning to my old school and campus where the familiar faces that once filled the sidewalks have been replaced with faces I did not know. To top the evening with seeing such a force-of-nature painter was quite intense & exciting, to say the least.

A good academic lecture with a bigwig at the podium always starts late, with the suspense building as the crowd gathers in intellectual anticipation. I had seen a picture recently of Saville in Vanity Fair, but save for that I would not have seen her in the auditorium. She dressed in normal clothes, with an unassuming stance with her hair in a ponytail. She is short, and yet the power of her gaze and the gravitas of her voice more than make up for any underestimatable frame.

Sometimes when you meet your heroes, you have an inflated view of how "awesome" they are going to be. You fantasize about having a deep conversation with them somehow, and perhaps becoming friends. I had no such illusions before this lecture. I prepared myself for her to be tough, academic, and as soon as the lecture was over...on a plane home. Given her success, I also was prepared for her to be a bit of a snob, a "queen of all painting" as it were, who couldn't have cared less what anyone thought of her and her work.

Luckily, Saville was not only a fascinating lecturer, but she was very matter-of-fact, very grateful to be there, and I think very overwhelmed by the show of affection and support for her and her work. A small group of students had come from as far as Miami to attend the lecture, and another woman I spoke to had driven from New York that day. The power Saville has in her work carries over into the reality of her presence. It is as important to see her in person as her work itself.

Her lecture was clear, and honest. She covered, with a great degree of humility, the wide range of influences that aided her work, and her practice. (Which consists of painting all day in a palazzo in Palermo, Sicily...not bad, huh?) The honesty of her narrative was truly the most inspirational part of the evening. Hearing the background of different pieces and how they were created was a true honor.

She showed very graphic images relating to flesh and the body, images she'd collected over the years as her work evolved. Some were, admittedly, hard to look at; the kind of images that make your body react with a cringe or slight cramp almost. But I was honored to be there, at the precipice of her portfolio, pushed to the edge of understanding and being asked to open my eyes wider then they were before I entered that lecture hall.

I admire her honesty and courage for standing at that precipice each day. Despite the luxury of her studio setting and the security of her career, she chooses to walk with the darkness and try to understand where it comes from. She listens to it and tells its story in voluptuous, fleshy oil paint. She makes the truth both disgusting and gorgeous, a didactic experience of art-viewing few achieve with such natural ability.

I feel like I can relate to the type of painter Jenny Saville is. She works extremely hard, has been painting all her life (since childhood), and cares deeply about how her work evolves. Saville is not arbitrarily referencing horrendous imagery for the shock or awe of it. We are not meant to see these rough images that inform her works. Her paintings are stunning despite their source material, yet we are better viewers for it.

I hope to see Saville again in my lifetime. If you have the chance to see her lecture...go. It is a once in a lifetime experience no painter's lifetime should be without.

Simple observations

During my recent hiatus of art production, I find myself looking around and remembering so much. As I see the world and catalog it in my mind as best I can, I remember even more from my past.

I remember candles at dinner when I was little, and I would test the power of my breath across the breadth of the table. Small wisps at first, building in volume and duration, and exhaling every few minutes, all to see the flames shutter in response. This test of my carbon dioxide endurance came and went while my parents chatted about the passing events of their day. To me these imaginative tests were far more fascinating than their dull diatribe of finance or petty comments from annoying acquaintances.

On the bus ride home this evening, an orange sun burned through cold purple clouds and warmed the still water of the polluted river. My back ached as the bus, in its headstrong journey down the highway, took no regard for the pits and faults of a neglected road, and how it sent the back of the bus into the air every few moments.

As a painter these "non-moments" that come and go all day are fuel and fusion for the process. Any work made after experiencing these moments is a result of having passed through these benign times as a willing observer, a servant to what happens when you step back and watch things happen.

I enjoy these times, where my mind is simply too empty to make work, and must fill itself with the world. Although I am frankly not happy with the work I am making now, I know the work I will make after this "empty" time, will be filled with the moments I observe, and save for inspiration later.

The future

Good morning!

Well, its been far too long.

First of all, I want to apologize for my absence, as I meant to write more after returning from New York. While writing this blog I got a wonderful show of support from fellow friends and artists and I sincerely thank them for that. It was a real blessing.

I had planned this blog to be a finite project, an account of my month in New York and upon my return, conclude it and keep it as a time capsule of a trying but wonderful experience.

However, since returning to Boston, I have felt more and more a need to express certain ideas and observations beyond my time in New York. Writing for me has become quite a release over the years; in a way, more than painting. Well, maybe not more, but certainly different.

I have decided to continue this blog as a journal of a young artist, just trying to get her work out there in the world. Not so much "Hey look at this cool project I'm doing" (there will be some of that), but more of a general expression of feelings and ideas that simply cannot be verbalized any other way. I think this process will help me in the next few months as I progress into the new territory referenced in previous posts.

I don't know how frequently I'll be able to write, but I look forward to when I do, as I hope you do. Thank you and I'll write again soon.