Works on Paper

Works on paper, while a medium I use throughout my work, are a particular area of practice in the studio. I just uploaded some preparatory studies for my new Flora and Fauna Investigations, the body of work I have been working on since the fall. Here is an example on the right. You can see more images from this series here.

Sketches or preparatory works can help develop a kind of rhythm in the work, which is how I use them. I create a space for the development of a back and forth, a habitual or practice of mark making. The dots and squares painted here began as these simple sketches and evolved into the more complex works I am referring to as Flora and Fauna Investigations, formerly known as Rhizomatic Foam.

Pink and Yellow Foam

This Foam Series has been occupying a lot of my mind and studio time lately. I had been calling the series Rhizomatic Foam, but as a title have decided to bench the term Rhizomatic. A little too obscure to be friendly and I am opting for friendly. I had thought this piece finished but am in new cycle of sending work around and needed to fully resolve some outstanding issues the piece still had before I felt OK about submitting it to a particular show I am interested in.  

So, I pulled the piece out of the box it had been stored in for the past couple of months and first cut a piece of foamboard a few inches smaller than the drawing/sculpture. I have been covering the foam board with patterned fabric that creates an added layer under the structure of the drawing. This layer is actually a kind of pedestal, a way of asserting the piece forward slightly from behind, thrusting it out into space a bit. The fabric is patterned with dots or in this case stripes. The black and white pattern add another dimension of information, texture and zip that I like under the white paper.

The ceramic and paper-clay balls on top further articulates the objectness I am after. Instead of a drawing, the piece has been transformed into an object or a thing through the added layer of balls and the foamboard. A piece of paper, working through the identity of drawing, then painting and finally becoming sculpture brings the whole affair into new territory.

Drawing as sculpture, sculpture as contemplative moment in time and space, playing with notions of human-ness in the form of bubble, foam or balls of ceramic, paper-clay painted and hanging on the piece, engaged with symbols of nature iterate the impression of nature, standing in reserve, set aside yet participating in the totality of the object, drawing as sculpture, beautiful, mysterious, affectionate and entertaining, adding to the general dialogue about being and time. 

Rhizomatic Foam Boxes

I have been working on a new group of Rhizomatic Foam dimensional collages. Reading Heidegger of late has inspired me to think about enframing and a particular concept in Heidegger, destining. "Enframing is “destining”, from which "the essence of all history is determined" (The Question Concerning Technology. 329).

Boxes have figured into my work for over 20 years. I looked at slides (remember slides??) of earlier work today and showed Tatiana work I had done in the early 90's. I made boxes out of wood back then, very sturdy and permanent. Now I am making boxes out of refuse, old cardboard and strengthening them with pages from an old encyclopedia. The layering of images over images, revealing and concealing, excites me and also makes me curious about what is emerging.

This piece, as yet untitled beyond Rhizomatic Foam Box, includes several ideas I have been working with for a long time and a few new ones. As I mentioned, I used to make boxes years ago, so that is something not entirely new, but given the time lapse between then and now, is a recycling of an old idea, and certainly new in my use of recycled cardboard and old encyclopedia pages. Cutting birds out of the pages of an encyclopedia, new. The totally novel addition to this piece is the little clamp light on top of the box. They felt a little dark, all boxy and layered so I decided to try adding a small lamp to this piece. I am somewhat happy with the affect, we'll see how that pans out in future iterations.

 Also new is the mounting of the drawing on a square behind the pieces that juts out into space. This makes the drawing, or collage, that much more dimensional and physical, a quality I am also intrigued by. The drawing becomes more assertive in this way. Drawings can be sort of lesser selves of their older kindred -- paintings, sculpture or whatever else the 'sketch' might be preparing for. These are not so much sketches as actual objects, taking up space, more so with their little wall mounted pedestals.

Hopefully the work is not just an assertion but an emergence of a poetic grammar that brings into focus images and objects that ultimately make me happy to make. That is the reason I make art -- to make me happy. It is also a pursuit, a journey, the unraveling of some sort of mystery. Yet, the more I do, the larger the mystery becomes. It isn't so much revealed as the revelation becomes wow! that is so hidden! Maybe if I do this... Sort of a never ending circling around, encircling and enframing, revealing and concealing, a dialectical back and forth over time that inspires, me at least and hopefully another. Art allows us to be with another, sharing the experience of a moment in front of a mutual object.

So, I am back into making boxes. I am making a tutorial, the first of its kind, let's see how it goes. Part one to be published later this week.