photo credit: Susan Tusa, Detroit Free Press

I am waiting for plaster to dry on some islands, so it’s as good a time to blog as any.  Lauren of Dear Golden tagged me with a “ten things” request.  Now my job is to post ten things about myself you don’t already know.  I think I will try to keep these art-related as that’s the nature of the blog.

1. I have attended four artists residencies: in Illinois, Newfoundland, Southern France and Budapest, Hungary

2. It must say something about me that I have twice been offered dead birds and have twice accepted.  In my freezer are a dead hummingbird and a dead cardinal.  They were that way when my friends found them, I assure you.  What will I do with them?  I’ll let you know when I find out.

3. I have been in academia since kindergarten with only summers off.  I went straight from high school to college, from college to grad school, from grad school to teaching adjunct and from teaching adjunct to assistant professor.  (Does kindergarten count as “academia”?)

4. I have taught three summers at Interlochen Arts Camp in northern Michigan near Traverse City (03-05)–painting and life drawing.

5. I have taught three classes that I never actually took when I was in school.  What are they?  Hmm… it’s a mystery.

6. My top three four favorite art shows I have ever seen are (in no particular order): William Kentridge retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago (2004), Mapping the Studio: Artists from the François Pinault Collection in Venice (2009), Drawing Now: Eight Propositions at Museum of Modern Art (Queens) in New York (2002), damn, I remembered another one (thus the strikethrough): Peter Doig at the Tate Britain (2008).

7. I am working on a video, and a sculpture (of sorts) right now and am pretty inexperienced in the particular media I am using.  I am googling a lot and relying on my friends for help.  Thanks guys and gals!

8. Despite the above statement, I generally don’t work collaboratively.  I tend to prefer working alone in the studio, usually listening to audio books, NPR or music.  I am currently listening to The Plot Against America by Philip Roth and The Terror by Dan Simmons.

9. I am starting four large scale paintings, and am a bit scared of them at this early point.

10. I have a REALLY hard time balancing  a regular work-out routine and an art practice.  I tend to be sporadic with both and can rarely sustain the two simultaneously, though they’re both so important to me.

So that’s it- my ten things.  Okay, I am going to pass the tagging love around to:

Mark from Irreverent Vegan

Val and/or Ryan from i’m just doing this thing

…to borrow a phrase from my friends Ryan and Vals’ blog, who in turn, borrowed it from our friend Jen’s mischievous nephew who uses the phrase to evade getting in trouble.  So, I am just doing this thing.  I kinda know what it is.  I know it has to do with art and that it’s due at the end of the month (yikes!).  I also know that this thing brought me to Home Depot, Michael’s, and the same hobby shop three times today, where each time, I had lovely chats about the hows and whatfors of model train building with some of the considerate and attentive members of the Ann Arbor Model Railroad Club.  Art causes me to wind up in the swellest of unexpected situations…

So, here is an image of “this thing” so far.  (And yes, I am being purposefully enigmatic to hopefully build suspense.  Of course if “this thing” flops, then I will feel a bit like a sheep, but c’est la vie, right?)

I have purposefully been laying low on the exhibition front lately, as the beginning of the year was beastly with one solo show coming down, two and a half more going up, plus juried and group exhibitions (and school and life), I was wiped!  I am making new work, which I plan to exhibit in solo or small group shows down the road, but it will be a while before that occurs.  For now, I was pleased to receive this image in my inbox today:

of my work (island paintings) in the recent International Artist-in-Residence Exhibition at the Museum of Trade and Tourism in Budapest.  Thank you to Beata for putting the show together and providing the opportunity!

I have been noticing a lot of crystals, skulls and mirrors in art and design in the last few years.  It appears to be a “thing.”  I readily embrace this “thing” and have even busted out a skull or three in my recent work.  There’s a very The Dark Crystal / The Never Ending Story aesthetic to a lot of this work which can probably be explained by the fact that many of the artists embracing it are of the generation that likely grew up with those movies and other like films, books, programs (media in general)  ingrained into our consciousness.

While some incidents of crystalskullmirror I’m seeing are mediocre (one can apparently make abominably cliché work with mirrors, for example) I find myself gravitating toward a lot of this work.  If this post makes it seem like I am lumping artists using these motifs into the same aesthetic category, then please take a look at some of my favorite folks in this realm and judge for yourself.

I am a huge fan of the work of Will Yackulic.  He shows with two galleries I really like: Jeff Bailey in New York and Gregory Lind in San Francisco.  He uses ink and gouache (two media I like to work with) and, somehow, a typewriter to make these stunning two-dimensional otherworlds.

Bearings & Ballast, 2009, ink, gouache and typewriter on paper, 30" x 22.25"

Aspects & Allowances, 2008 ink, gouache, watercolor and typewriter on paper, 22 x 17.75 inches

Invocation 5th, 2008, gouache, watercolor and typewriter on paper, 10.625" x 8.5"

Then there’s the work of David Altmejd, whose work Mark and I first came across in the 2007 Venice Biennale, where he put together a fantastic, nay, phenomenal exhibition for the Canadian pavilion.  He uses mirrors A  LOT, but SO much better than anyone else out there using mirrors to do similar things.  They are just one aspect of the insane worlds he creates, which also include:  taxidermied birds,*  giants, genitals, both flora and fauna, fur, body parts, and YOU because there are so many mirrors in his work, that you inevitably become part of the work.  I could barely photograph it without getting myself in a shot.  Like this:

The Index, exhibition at the Canadian pavilion

Note please that I am not a professional photographer and that there are way sweeter images of his work online.  See? But I thought it would be neat to post some photos I took while experiencing the exhibition.

The Index, exhibition at the Canadian pavilion

a mirrored giant monster with Lee Press-On Nails (TM)

We like him so much, in fact, that we just ordered two monographs on him.  One is the catalog for this exhibition, and the other is this lovely book:

For example of this crystal mirror phenomenon in contemporary media, someone caught indie pop lady Mirah fiddling with these mirror pyramids and put the photo in the liner notes of her latest album.

Skulls.  Lots of skulls.  When in Europe, whenever I saw a skull in contemporary art, I photographed it.  Here are the results of my self-assigned scavenger hunt:

skull in a gallery window in Venice (as a bonus, it even has a skull tree growing from it)

butterfly skull in a gallery in Venice

glass skull on glass bones by Jan Fabre at the exhibition Glasstress in Venice

ceramic vessel by Miquel Barceló, representing the Spanish pavilion at the Biennale

skull in a drawing by Jef Geys, representing the Belgian pavilion

And now, my own contribution:

still life I composed out of a postcard and an eraser from the Pinault Collection gift shop

I am so enamored of people’s fascination with skulls (just go on The Selby and see how many skulls you can count in people’s homes alone), that I was making portraits of skulls in Budapest, remember? I’ll get back to those soon I think.

That reminds me, I need to get amakin’, as I am yet again a contributing artist to my friend Krista Peel‘s Calendar Project.  This time the theme is Art Museum, for which I have to create a mini model of a museum.  It can be ANYTHING I want it to be, can be made of any material, and, (blessedly) does not have to be in the least functional.  So, which will it be: Crystals, Skulls, or Mirrors?  I suppose we’ll see…

* Taxidermy is another “thing” in art right now altogether.  Perhaps I’ll tackle that stuffed, lifeless beast in a future post.

I was fortunate to guest blog about none other than… rings (of course!) on my friend Lauren’s blog Dear Golden.  She also has a top notch etsy shop by the same name through which she proffers vintage wares, and I am guilty of taking home a lot of the bounty.  I suppose I could have composed the same post for this blog, but I haven’t really written about fashion much here, and since her blog is geared toward it, specifically vintage fashion from all eras, we thought the guest blog would be a fun idea.

Lauren and I like a lot of the same kinds of vintage clothing, though her scope is much larger than mine.  Her tastes never fail to inspire me.

We have been thrifting buddies for awhile now.  I think the reason I like thifting so much is getting so much for so little.  Thifting allows one to find seemingly unique items, often in very good or excellent condition, for a low price.  I really like purchasing previously owned pieces that have a history, and in doing so, I am not encouraging the manufacture of new goods, or so I tell myself.  I know I am not alone in this practice (which, if you’re not careful can border on obsession).  And it’s not just clothing that I find in this way, but also house stuff.  We have a thoroughly thrifted house.  What isn’t thrifted is often from craigslist, garage sales, or antique stores.

Of course, buying from Dear Golden means that I am buying thrifted items, but it’s even better because I am getting hand-selected, often carefully mended clothing, about which Lauren knows the historical context.  And I’m supporting a friend too.  I model for her from time-to-time and am happy when she sends me home with “payment” in an especially cool skirt I modeled that day, or a pair of shoes.

Apparently a lot can happen in a 36-hour whirlwind trip to Toronto.  We left late Friday morning and returned to Ypsi by 11 p.m. the next night.  The occasion was our friend Simon’s visit to see us this weekend.  He had never been to Toronto and since it’s such a vegan-friendly place, we decided to go and eat everything in sight.  I was lax in my picture taking on Saturday, but I did snap some photos Friday night.

Mark enjoying an avocado mint smoothie at the Calico Cafe

tags and flowers

night spinning

house crying a rainbow

art in a storefront window

In 36 hours we hit up Calico Cafe where we et up beautiful appetizers, dinners, and even had a smoothie, Get Real Cafe for a fantastic vegan brunch of waffles, fresh squeezed grapefruit juice, and a tofu scramble plate for champions, Buddha’s Vegetarian Food for GIANT portions of Hong Kong style veggie food that Mark will still be eating for lunches the next few weeks, and Fresh for take-away salads, a chocolate chunk cookie, a divine date bar and smoothies!  Oh the smoothies!  I had a Shamrock shake made out of mint, banana, rice milk, matcha tea, and agave nectar- oh man!

We rode bikes everywhere, which was very handy.  We stopped in an art supply shop, a couple of galleries and the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art (MOCCA).  We consumed vinyl and wearable sundries at local Toronto shops: Soundscapes and Rotate This for records and cds and Preloved for reconstructed shorts, shirts and skirts. We also stopped into 69 Vintage, where for once I managed to keep from buying something.  I do have a stunner of a coat from there procured on a previous trip, however.

Not bad for 36 hours eh?

When I start a new body of work or major studio session, I like to clean house a bit.  This time I went a little nuts and put all of the old paintings away, took down old influence images and created a blank slate of a studio in which to work on the large island paintings.  At first it’s not very glamorous, just a bunch of canvas stretching and gessoing.  I will assuredly keep you apprised of my progress.

Sorry to get a Meatloaf song stuck in your head.  But today I acquired some new stuff and it’s somehow all art related, so I thought I would share my successes and sorrows.  First here’s the stinker.  I ordered this paper from Canson in “indigo”

to make more island drawings and it’s not the right damn stuff.  It’s the wrong size and slightly the wrong color and there is a sticker annoyingly adhered to all 50 sheets.  But the kicker is that I can’t find the right paper anywhere online.  I guess that’s what happens when you pick up some single sheets of colored paper on a whim in Budapest–it’s ne’er to be found again–at least on this side of the Atlantic…or in cyberspace, for that matter, which I hear is a pretty big place.

But now for some good purchases.  I got this big blingy book that I had been drooling over for awhile and wanting since seeing the wonderful grotesque paintings in Italy:

I actually did two things:

1) I finally put the images of the work I made in Budapest onto my website.   That’s  an important step in the artmaking process for me.  Seeing the work together, online, is a way for me to digest it differently than seeing it on the wall.  It also officially puts it “out there” (wherever that is) for others to see and comment on.

2) Also, and bigger and potentially better (yet all part of the same package), the universe collided in such a way so that today I found myself writing an email to Richard Gillespie, TIGHAR‘s (The International Group for Historic Airline Recovery) executive director in charge of leading yet another expedition to what is now called Nikumaroro Island (formerly Gardner).  I am writing to see if I can go along on the month-long expedition starting in May 2010 to search for DNA on the island that could lead to knowledge of Amelia Earhart’s whereabouts at the time of her death and a big “mystery solved” stamp on one of the most compelling enigmas in recent history.

Now if I get a response at all from this supremely busy man, that will be great.  If I get an affirmative response from him, that will be epic.  Then I can start the extensive grant writing process that will consume me for the next few months.  Thanks to NPR’s The World for featuring an interview with Ric Gillespie about the trip and my friend Brian Spolans for alerting me to this article from ABC News.  These two bits of media helped kick me in the butt to write the email.

In other news, when I finally bring all of this work together in an exhibition, I hope to make it somehow museum-like in appearance and presentation, as though I am presenting artifacts rather than artwork, or a hybridization of the two.  On this topic I just received this book in the mail today:

which I am very excited to read.  The Museum of Jurassic Technology in LA presents fictions as though they are fact.  I am very compelled by this aesthetic of painstakingly contrived deceptions.  It is a historically rich, yet very current mode of presenting information.  I have witnessed this phenomenon in the writing of Ben Marcus, and the artwork of Hyungkoo Lee who’s work we saw at the Korean Pavilion during the 2007 Venice Biennale.  He creates realistic skeletal remains of cartoon characters.

Now, I am going to use all of this excited energy to head off to the studio!