CCAD MFA Week #1: Whatever you do take care of your shoes.

08-30-15

A lot has happened in the first week of my graduate schooling at CCAD.  Orientation feels like weeks ago already.  It’s a hell of a lot of fun telling people that I am part of the program when they ask and I say it with so much joy.  I have never had a week of art making that really touches what has already transpired.  Studio visits with multiple professors with more to come.  I go home to use my bed and shower.  Tim Rietenbach and Gordon Lee have already stopped by for some studio time both with unique approaches to discussing and critiquing my work.  Tomorrow I’ll be sharing conversation with Rob Robbins on the subjects of giant stretcher building and my work in general.  Tuesday’s plan is to hang out with Kathy McGhee and learn about photographic silk screening for some potential implementation in future canvas work.  We’ll see what happens with that as I know very little about silk screen printing.  Along with that I have been enjoying getting used to running the facilities over in Battelle.  So much fun already.  Saturday was a day of exploring the tools in the wood side of the building in my free time.  I made a relatively simple Bender bobble head. Makes me laugh.  

My studio space came together really quickly and I didn’t hesitate to put paper on the floor and spill some paint.  Energy is good right now and work is flowing out rather nicely.  I hope to have 6 pieces pretty close to completed by Tuesday’s crit and I really can’t wait.  Before applying to school I used to go to MFA portfolio days just for critiques.  There were a few years that I went and didn’t apply.  There isn’t much like the growth you get from the variety of perspectives available at those events and I took advantage of them until I was ready to commit.

So here is how I feel right now about possible directions for work.  There is the proposed light/mirror boxes from my original proposal that has already evolved into a more powerful idea.  Gordon Lee introduced me to the concept of projection mapping which would allow me to paint with light and explore sculpture and 3D space.  I’ll be toying with the process of creating a projector out of my phone and a magnifying glass to see if there is a spark of energy in that direction.  I think there is quite a bit.  The learning curve is a bit startling but I think I can figure it out.  The trick will be making something that isn’t just a “cool for cool’s sake” but rather creating a work that integrates with what I am already exploring and carries a deeper impact.  It fits into my long history of romance with light via the camera but will allow me to actually paint with light and motion instead of just react to it.  

Another direction of exploration is to go huge.  It seems that everyone wants my paintings to be massive and immersive. Tim believes that my work with “Grasping Photons” speaks to a larger format and I have to agree.  Molly and John have said they would like to see my paintings go larger as well.  The tough part would be learning to treat brushes like pastels.  I can’t get that crisp line that I can make with a piece of chalk so that is why I thought I would explore screening processes.

The theme that I see growing regardless of what I makes is the search for why.  Gordon Lee put it rather nicely.  Currently my work is like a moth and a light bulb.  Why is the moth continually bashing into the light over and over and over?  I want to find the reasoning for my compulsions, the reason I am smashing into the bulb.  It’s not going to come over night but I might have some thoughts that I will reveal when I am more comfortable with how the intertwine with my present direction and future research into the matter. Until this I want to explore everything available that might add to what I create.

My understanding of my actual placement in contemporary art is expanding pretty rapidly as well.  In college, art history stopped at around the 1950’s as I never managed to take the contemporary history class and thus a lot of what I am responding to is two and three generations back.  I had the opportunity but chose not to for ignorant silly reasons.  I didn’t like what I was seeing in the books and 7 years ago didn’t fully respect what was happening.  I mean, the Pizzuti Collection exists and I didn’t know about it until last spring.  Incredible work in that collections.  Tomory Dodge!  Anyways, Tim has been feeding me names, a few of which I was aware of.  Sue Williams, Albert Oehlan, Gerhard Richter, Ross Bleckner, Brice Marden, Joan Mitchel, Terry Winters, Philip Taffe, Elizabeth Murray, Sarah Cain, Mark Bradford.  My question will be why do these artist do what they do?

08-31-15

So Rob Robbins has stopped by and given me some justification for exploring multiple directions.  Large painting is going to happen soon.  I might build a few large canvases next week.  Continuing to find a good outflow of work is my initial goal.  They just need to “vibe” right and not fight.  Working on paper is allowing me to spill out many risk free pieces of work which can later be used to inform much larger works.  The projection mapping project will be a continued exploration throughout the semester but may not culminate in much more than an understanding of how.  Until I can determine if it is a direction I want to really dive deeply into I’m going to continue producing as many pieces as I can.

It is going to be helpful to understand my past history in art.  I was (and still am) a photographer in undergrad at Allegheny College in Meadville PA.  My work initially existed in the wet room and film and moved to digital when I wanted to start producing more.  These early explorations took me into abandoned buildings in the surrounding area.  The Talon Zipper Factory was an incredible place with massive factory windows and repetitive support structures.  I was studying geometry, light, decay, and texture.  Later explorations of texture and light took my into work with High Dynamic Range (HDR) imaging.  This is a process where three or more bracketed images are layered and leveled to replace portions of clipping (highs and lows) with detail from the images.  Eventually I needed to explore something else.  The buildings I was using were being leveled.  The talon factory was demolished 2 weeks after I finished shooting and it came as a surprise.  I struggled with finding inspiration in my surroundings.  People were starting to use LEDs and Flashlights to artificially light surroundings and I thought it was cheesy most of the time and that most of the time people were just surviving off of the bells and whistles that came along with it. Composition with photography is paramount and these people weren’t really doing it justice in my opinion.  I started painting with lights and capturing motion through long exposures and after a shoot I would go through the hundreds of images and pick the ones that were energetic compositionally.  Some of these works were layered and manipulated but most of them were displayed as the camera captured them.

Then came the paintings, which were largely inspired by a project from an intro drawing course that I took just to get time with Sue Buck who I believe to be brilliant.  She exposed me to the freedom of a blank piece of paper (this was the first one very Arshile Gorky heavy) and I put the camera down.  No longer was I forced to respond to my surroundings and the light around me.  I felt free and that is what I have been running off of for the last almost 7 years.  Photography and my training in that medium largely informs my work.  How could it not?  I haven't stopped shooting photos all together.  Since 2009 I have been photographing concerts from the pits at local bars and national music festivals.

Art 21 has been a great source for exploring contemporary art.  Katherine Grosse makes these giant crumpled sculptures out of hot wire cut styrofoam that look like balled or rolled up canvas.  Her work combines painting and sculpture and her application of paint really pushes concepts of scale with relationship to the viewer and the surroundings.  Leonardo Drew discusses comfort and his uncomfort with that comfort.  He is largely a process driven artist, informed by previous works, and doesn’t intend to explain his work.  He says he can’t tell you.  He just constantly places himself in the act of attempting to know.