I am reinstalled in my Ypsi studio for the time being until August when I head to Philly for another residency.  After working small in Iceland, it feels great to be working large again!  I love having the sea glass and ceramic in the studio and keep arranging it in different ways.  Now to keep from melting…

Fekete Leves (where the sky used to be) is a two-person installation that engages aspects of disorientation and loss of control by Budapest-based artist Nannette Vinson and Detroit-area artist Amy Sacksteder.  Sacksteder is exploring mortality by channeling the last moments in Amelia Earhart’s life through mostly drawings, paintings and installations.  Through her ink drawings, Vinson is revisiting the turbulence that accompanies loss of innocence.  Her visual art background is primarily in photography and video art; Sacksteder’s is in 2D media.  Through this collaboration, each artist is working in an as-yet “foreign” medium to her, thus each is experiencing her own lack of control.  This is their first collaborative endeavor.

Chinese Characters Contemporary Art Space

1073 Budapest – Kertész u. 4

Thursday, March 4, 6 – 10 p.m.

David and Nannette were kind enough to loan me a space in their flat to use as a drawing studio while I’m here.  So far, we’re spending a lot of time editing video and making work–with some feasts here and there for good measure.  Tomorrow we’re off to the hardware store to get installation materials.  Then we’re headed to the Glenn Brown exhibition at the Ludwig Museum.

I updated my website, and that’s no mean feat, considering how behind I was.  Head on over there and check it out, won’t you?

bleached tree on a cliff in Newfoundland

I am reconfiguring the way that I think about this blog in relation to my website.  This seems like a great forum for all of the stuff I had on (and would be updating to)  the pictures page on my site.  There is no longer a link to that page, though you can still access it here.  Now there’s a link to the blog instead!  So, I thought I would go through the images on that page and re-post them here from time to time so everything is in the same place.  I am starting with some images from a residency I attended though the Pouch Cove Foundation (sadly no longer open) in Newfoundland in 2005.  It was a breathtaking experience!    Here goes:

the dock in Pouch Cove

the dock at Pouch Cove

The residency was in an old school building and my studio was a former classroom. There was a view of the sea from my windows.

I was working on the series Isolation at the time and used the shelf from my refrigerator as a palette.

work installed in studio

moose country

clothesline against the Atlantic

sunset in a lobster net

cliffs on the island of St. John's

It’s been a busy couple of art months recently.  The latest is an installation called Ghost Town for the Annual Art Faculty Exhibition in the University Gallery at EMU.  What you don’t see is one of the best aspects of the piece: there’s a song.  Mark wrote the most amazing song recently that I dubbed Ghost Town and I knew it had to be part of this piece.  He rigged speakers in the rafters above the installation that plays the song subtly, so that you only really hear it when enveloped in the gold cut paper.

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To get an interwebby version of the effect, listen to the mp3 while scrolling through the images.

I made the components of this piece at different times.  The gold paper cut-outs and small oil painted panels were all made for my solo exhibition Still at Paint Creek Center for the Arts in April 2009.  The skull pieces (gouache and gold leaf) were made in Budapest this last summer.  They are essentially portraits of the skulls in the artist/stylist/designers’ homes featured on The Selby.  I plan to make more of these and am excited to see where I can go with this piece in the future.

The opening is Tuesday night February 2 from 4 – 7 p.m. in the University Gallery in the Student Center at EMU.    There’s a lot of great work by all of my colleagues.  Come see the show!

One show just came down at the Gallery Project in Ann Arbor and one show just went up at Paint Creek Center for the Arts in Rochester (MI).  I am honored to have been/be a part of both of them.  Here are some photos of my work from Presence/Absence at PCCA (including some new work hot off the drawing table):

back right wall of gallery; all small pieces are propped up on scrabble tile trays mounted onto the wall

In Lights: oil on canvas with theater light and glass window blocks. Gobo projection reads Amelia Earhart's last words: We are running north and south.

Last Map drawings: gouache, ink, and gold leaf on blue paper

Object Lesson panels: gouache and gold leafing pen on birch panels

back left wall of gallery

Slides From the Trip- slideshow of stills from silent film project, a collaboration with Budapest-based artist Nannette Vinson

white drawings

Captured Island: gouache and ink on paper

Longitude: gouache and ink on paper

Navigation: gouache and ink on paper

Skullscape: gouache and ink on paper

Presence/Absence runs from January 15-February 20 with an opening reception at Paint Creek on Friday the 22nd from 7-9.  I am accompanied in the show by four amazing artists: Faina Lerman, Luzhen Qiu, Alison Wong, and Sun You. Here is a sweet blurb about the show in Real Detroit Weekly. Hope you can make it out to the opening!

I sort of love buckthorn roots.  They are these insidious, craggly, deep black, evil looking beauties. I spray painted one gold and it hangs from the ceiling in my studio.  If I could get hold of a bunch of these, I would have a subterranean inverted forest sprouted from my ceiling.

So, naturally I was googling the term “buckthorn root” to see if I could purchase some on the internets.  In doing so, I serendipitously stumbled upon the work of a contemporary artist that I really like.  I promptly emailed Gregory Euclide and told him so.  Then lo and behold, his work appears on the sweet art blog My Love for You is a Stampede of Horses the very next day.  Here are some images of his work.

i flattened whatever pushing made the valley tremble, Acrylic, buckthorn root, cigrette butts, found foam, goldenrod, grass, lichen, Moss, mushroom, mylar, netting, paper, pencil, photo transfer, pine needle, polyurethane foam, sponge, sumac, wood 29 x 23 x 3

capture #12, acrylic, cedar tree, lichen, paint can, polyurethane foam, sponge, stone, wood

a new kind of quiet, warm in the air, bursting forth from the furrow, acrylic, paper, pencil, PETG, bees wax,wood 26 x 42 x 13

C’est belle, non?  This is the work of a visionary.

And then today Daily Serving serves up the work of Adam Friedman.  Downright gorgeous.  And I really like the whys and wherefores of his work, which you can read if you visit his site or the Daily Serving feature on his work.

"A Sky of Rock" 2009 Acrylic, Screen Print, Gel Transfers, and Collage on Panel 18"x14"

"No Vestige of a Beginning, No Prospect of and End" 2010 Screen Print, Acrylic, Gel Transfers, and Collage on Panel 16"x16"

"Oceans Before and Behind Us in Time" 2010 Acrylic, Screen Print, and Collage on Panel 18"x12"

Inspiring.

I moved around a lot as a kid and lived as far south as Georgia, where I was born, and as far north as Buffalo, NY, where we moved when I was six or seven.  After five moves, my family settled for the rest of my growing-up years in Rockford in northern Illinois.  As a disgustingly rebellious high-schooler facing college, I wanted to get as far away from home as possible.  I made it as far away as…Dayton Ohio (I know, I know).  I returned to the Rockford area to attend grad school at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb.  I applied to a bunch of schools all over the place, but that’s what ended up working best for me.

Throughout and since grad school, I have wanted to participate in the Rockford Art Museum‘s Biennial juried exhibition.  I saw one of them in grad school.  The space is amazing and the work was excellent that year.  Counting back that must have been either 2002 or 2004.  I applied once or twice since then and didn’t get in or the application date would inadvertently pass me by.  Well, this year, I both applied and got in: TWO major accomplishments!    I applied with some pretty big work, and was prepared to haul it out there if need be, but am grateful that I got a small piece in.  Here it is!

All That's Left, oil on panel, 11" x 14", 2008

detail-- photo credit Susan Tusa from the Detroit Free Press

What a difference lighting can make-eh?  Can you tell which image was shot by a professional photographer?  I guess I gave it away.  If you happen to be in snowy Rockford Illinois on January 22nd, you can attend the opening.  I have an opening in Rochester Michigan that night; equally snowy, but much closer.  To see the dates and times the Rockford Midwestern Biennial will be open, visit RAM’s website.

Come on out to the opening on Friday if you can!  It should be a lot of fun!  Email or message me if you want a shirt to wear to the exhibition.  The info below is from Gallery Project’s website. Visit the site for hours and directions.  Hope to see you there!

Spring 2010 Collection

December 9 to January 11

Opening Reception: Friday, December 11, from 6-9pm.

Gallery Project presents the Spring 2010 Collection, a fashion exhibit showcasing artists as designers and social commentators. The annual fundraising exhibit opens at noon on Wednesday, December 9 and runs to 4pm on Sunday, January 11.  The reception is on Friday, December 11, from 6-9pm.

The 27 local, regional and national artists have created their own collection line or individual pieces specifically for the exhibition, and have made work that will be modeled on the catwalk show during the opening reception.  Artists explore the myriad influences and contexts of fashion, investigating issues such as identity and values, innovation and retrogression, trends and fads, materialism and consumption, high and low fashion, globalism and regionalism, thrift, reusing, recycling and reclaiming.

Artists and art collectives include basement6 (Jon Humphrey and Robin Coe), Jillian Brown, Betsy Brunner, Dorota Coy, Steve Coy, Bianca DePietro, Melissa Dettloff, Reed Esslinger, Jennifer Locke, Lana McKinnon, Modati (Bilal Ghalib, Sarms Jabra, Alexander Lee), Ryan Molloy, Barbara Neri, Amy Sacksteder, Gary Setzer, Bethany Shorb, Alexander Sobolev, Brooks Harris Stevens, Jim Stevens, Britten Stringwell, Jenn Stucker, Talking Squid (Taryn Boyd), Scott Tallenger and Andrew Thompson.

The exhibit is designed as a fun, interactive event.  Visitors are encouraged to come out in their finery to join the debutants, fashionistas, and designers.  A Catwalk Show starting at 7pm will highlight the opening reception.  Paparazzi will be flashing their cameras, with images available for purchase.  Visitors will be able to purchase Photo Passes so that they can photograph themselves, as they model garments and participate in interactive work.  Gallery goers are also invited to make DIY projects throughout the exhibition.

This exhibition is curated by artists Jennifer Locke, assistant professor of art at Eastern Michigan University, Steve Coy, art lecturer at The University of Michigan School of Art and Design, and Alexander Lee, a founding member of Modati, a local silk screening company.

Gallery Project is a fine art collaborative.  Its mission is to provide a venue for contemporary art that is culturally aware, individualistic, courageous, and thought provoking.  Gallery Project is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.  It is located at 215 South Fourth Avenue in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  Fall/Winter gallery hours: Tuesday through Thursday, noon-6; Friday and Saturday, noon-9; and Sunday, noon-4. The gallery is closed on Mondays.  For more information, please call 734-997-7012 or contact us through our website: www.thegalleryproject.com