cones

Here are some images from my final sculpture piece. I really enjoyed making these cone forms and also the final product. The process of making them was kind of laborious but rewarding in the end. Fabric cone forms on PVC rings, with plaster and dry pigment "frescoed" onto the surface. approx 3 1/2' diameter and 7' tall.





I like the relationship they have in scale with the viewers body. The location is important because of the multiple levels of view. While above them one is able to see down inside, yet when approached the tops of the cones are well above eye level, keeping many secrets from the viewer. In the future I would really like to explore this idea a lot more with some more of these forms.

Sculpture in progress

Paintings, both finished and not.
This is what I've been working on in the past month or two. Some of these are finished, but most of them are not. Lately I've kind of been working on them all simultaneosly and changing them a lot. Paintings over paintings over paintings. Maybe in a few more weeks I'll post some more images and maybe I'll have a few of the same ones when they are completed. Enjoy!

Here are some images of my masks. Ritual masks for the every day routine.


dreaming mask

fun mask

birthday mask

smoking mask

process performance for ceramic structures

Somethin' good! The Cramps

So recently I've been watching some movies. Last week I watched The Wizard of Oz with a couple friends and it had been way too long since I've seen that movie - 1o years maybe? Scary, I know, and I was really amazed at how good that movie is. It's colorful, fun, creepy, symbolic, imaginative and best of all - there's a moral to the story! What I'm getting at is that I hardly remembered this movie from my childhood - which is not right.
A few days ago, I saw another movie, which I remembered just as much, if not more than the wizard of Oz. When I was in maybe 5th grade I saw the Jim Carrey movie Me, Myself and Irene - which was absolutely terrible. I didn't like it at all the other week, and I hope I didn't like it that much then either, but I only remembered a few parts of it from when I was a kid. How do movies like this effect someone in their childhood? I feel like a lot of it was over my head at the time, but I should have been watching the wizard of Oz instead. Better late than never, right?

It's time to go see the wizard.

I'm going to do a painting about this.

RED

I think red is my favorite color. Right now I'm hooked on it, and a lot of the art that I've been drawn to has specific uses of RED.

Red is a complex color I think, and has the most associations as far as the other colors go. But to me, red is passion, red is pressure, red is strong, hot and boiling. Cadmium red, right out of the tube. Why would you mix it!? it looks so good already.

Look at how this artist uses red. He is HOT

http://www.maximkantor.com/index.html

Guston

So, to add to my last post about Guston.

I said that there has to be great reason in making such a change in his artistic approach, and seeing the evolution of his art is essential to understand this progression. His later 'cartoon-like' paintings were not only a change from the abstract expressionist (but not really) color pieces, but were a rediscovery of his earlier self. His earliest work, before his non-objective phase, was containing imagery of Ku-klux klan members and war. He got caught up in the painting itself and made a name for himself as an abstract painter, selling many works, and later was no longer content with it. After returning to his early subject matter he became a more experienced version of the artist that he always was once again (thanks for pointing that out, Shetabi). THAT is real honesty.

Moral of the story:

Honesty is the best policy

don't lie to yourself

and don't lie to others either!

hidden and strange

So today I went on a trip with some classmates to the Newark Museum in Newark, New jersey. We saw a painting show on South American Abstraction, which was interesting, but we also took plenty of time to see the 20th century painting wing. Their collection wasn't huge, but it provided a wide variety of differing american painters.

One of the paintings I responded to the most was one of Philip Guston's. I never used to be so into his paintings, but seeing his work evolvethroughout his life is something that has interested me way more than seeing the work of many other artists. Such a drastic change in style and content requires a great amount of reasoning, and I find this change fascinating.

His earlier abstract paintings brought in lots of money, and established his carreer as making paintings that were almost "too beautiful" for the time. Despite his popularity he switched to his more cartoon-like style which seemed to better suite, which I find to be magnificent.

After reading this article I find his work even more interesting yet, as the reasoning behind his transition was a lifelong battle. If your interested, check out this article. I found it very fulfilling:

http://www.aestheticrealism.org/philip_guston/philip_guston.html

finding your artistic self

finding your own process - it's hard!
How can one claim a particular way of working to be theirs? Can we share a process? I bet someone else has the same process that I do. So I guess that means just forget about being the super-orignal artist you thought you were!
"my" process is pretty messy right now. Just a cluttered pile of this and that, a collage, if you will. A bunch of drawings, paint, some trash and dust. Dandruff and bodily fluids. I could defend myself and call it an intelectual collage of smartness, but I don't think that's the case.
In art school there is a lot of pressure to find your own voice and process because that's what real artists do. Or at least the successful ones. I'm a litle scattered right now and that's kind of my process. Working into the remains of what was there before. Painting over, into and starting over completely. Realizing what I am not, the hard way, but still not finding what I am. Wow, that sucks. haha

Here is a link to an interesting article about the artist Nathan Oliveira. His paintings are great, and I wish that mine were more like his. In the article it talks about his development as an artist throughout his life, defying trends in the artworld, and his lifelong process as an artist. Reading this about him and his paintings makes me feel a lot better. :)

http://www.ebsqart.com/ArtMagazine/za_195.htm

So I've been looking for some inspiration and have been trying to see how other artists work. This interview with Francis Bacon really moved me and I thoroughly enjoyed it. There are two parts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x10BjZa-lyk

I think reading interviews with artists is a great way to understand a little more about their work, but to hear the artist speak and see their manerisms is a whole other story. The great artists that have come before us were all real people too, not just myths and legends. Francis Bacon was as real as it gets, and in this interview it is so inspiring to me to see what makes him tick, and to hear how he goes about making a painting. Enjoy! (notice how he opens and squeezes out the paint from a new tube!)

Welcome

Hello and welcome to trashpick!
This blog was created to document and share the progress in my artmaking, and to share things that I'm currently reading or looking at with everyone else. I've never had a blog before, so here goes nothin'!

To get started, here are a few images that I've made. These first 5 images are all portraits, which I think is a nice way for me to introduce myself to the world wide web.