Shameless Self Promotion

That's right, I'm breaking my three month radio silence to shamelessly self-promote. I currently have work on display in two different locations. The first is the Graduate Biennial show at Kent State in the School of Art Gallery. The show will be up until February 13th. 

The other exhibition is on the first floor of the Mandel School of Social Sciences at Case Western Reserve University. I have a dozen pieces on display and they'll be up until February 20th. If you find yourself on the Case campus anytime soon, go take a peek. 

There are a couple of upcoming shows I'm cautiously hoping to get into. I'm applying to the third annual juried show at the Morgan, as well as the Student Annual at Kent. For the Student Annual I plan to submit work that I did last semester for my Surface Design class. It's really different than any of the work I've done in the past but I'm excited about it..

Work is going well. I'm in the process of scheduling all the summer workshops. After that, it's sending out contracts, writing class descriptions, and getting the catalog together. It's the most responsibility I've ever had at any job and I admit it's a little stressful at times. That being said, it's also the most rewarding work I've ever done. I can't wait for it to be summer, when all the Morgan Magic happens. 

As far as school goes, I'm taking nothing but independent study hours this semester, giving me more freedom in terms of being able to work on what I choose instead of being forced to fulfill arbitrary assignments. I think it will prepare me more for when I'm in thesis. Admittedly, it's a long way off, but I'm chipping away at it. That's how I get most things done. 

Mid-Term Project and Exhibit

To say that I have been busy over the past few months is an understatement. Between work and school and projects I had little free time and that free time was mostly spent sleeping. Now that I'm on break, it's time to play catch up. First, a review of my Feltmaking mid-term and some words about the exhibition I was in. I'll cover my final projects in another post since I have too much ground to cover. Next semester I'll have to be better about keeping up with the blog.

Laying out the wool roving for the base

The semester was amazing. Given that I was completely terrified about what was ahead the first couple of weeks of class, I was doubtful that things would turn out okay. But once I settled in I actually started to enjoy myself. By midterms I was really getting into classes and I made this really cool felt sculpture that looks kind of like a tentacled monster. Here it is, step-by-step.

Pre-Felt stage and adding felted spikes

I first felted the base of the project, laying it out flat. I knew I wanted the final piece to be sculptural but I decided to work flat and insert wire later on for shape. Once I laid the roving out, I pre-felted it and added felted spikes once the base dried. The spikes were insert from the inside out since the inside wouldn't be visible when the piece was complete.

Inserting rubber tubing as a resist

When I finished inserting all the spikes I began to sew in some rubber tubing as a resist. With the tubing in place, I could later come back and insert wire to form the piece into something three dimensional. This was by far the most time-consuming step of the project. Not only did I have to carefully hand-sew each of the lengths of tubing in so they wouldn't move around once I felted another layer over them, but I then had to remove all the stitches once they were secured so it wasn't visible from the outside.

The legs in their pre-felted stage.

Then it was on to the legs. The legs you see here are actually the second set I made. The first set didn't come together as nicely as I would have liked and I spent so much time and effort on the base of the project that I didn't want to ruin it all by attaching legs to it that didn't fit my high standard of quality. If something is worth doing, it's worth doing right, right? Anyway, I constructed the legs by winding the wool roving around some flexible armature wire. I did two layers of contrasting colors so that I could cut multicolored stripes into them after the pre-felt stage.                        



Once the legs were finished and dry, I was able to start assembling the finished piece. I cut holes in the

Assembling the finished piece

middle of the base and threaded the legs through. After that, I flipped the piece over and sewed the petal structures together so it would form a sort of pod shape. It didn't turn out exactly like I thought it would, which was a little disappointing, but I did learn a lot while creating this piece. Sometimes messing up is the best lesson there is. I intended for the petals to all come up into a point, but the structure was too wide for them to all come together, so it wound up being open on top. Next time I'll make a better pattern so things match up the way I envision them.  I also would have liked the legs to support the pod but they weren't strong enough in the end. Next time I'll use a thicker gauge wire.

Finished piece, top view

 In any case, I really like the finished piece, flaws and all. It's something I worked really hard on and it's completely different than anything I've ever made before. It was nice to get out of my comfort zone and attempt something totally new. Although this piece was quite a departure from my normal style of art, I do like it and I see myself making similar items in the future.

Finished piece, side view

Around the time I was working on this felt piece, I also had the chance to be part of the Morgan Conservatory's annual open house exhibition and silent auction. I donated a piece made entirely of origami folded paper, sewn onto a 2ft by 2ft canvas. I made the piece over the summer and was so proud to finally see it displayed for all to see. The open house was great fun, with live music and amazing food and my piece even got auctioned for a respectable amount. I already can't wait for next year's event.

Me, smiling next to my lovely piece

Gallery Submissions

The folded circles

I've spent the better part of the past two weeks working on a couple of submissions for The Morgan's inaugural juried exhibition. Pieces had to either be done on paper or consist of at least 50% paper. Each of my pieces were made of paper attached to canvas, and while they were made of the same material, the two couldn't be more different.

The first piece is called Blank Botanical #1. I folded many hundreds of these small paper circles and strung them onto linen bookbinding thread, and then I sewed the strands onto a plain white, 2ft by 2ft canvas. The result is overwhelmingly sculptural. The more strands I sewed onto the canvas, the more textured and layered it became. And although the pieces that I attached were all white, I used different shades of white to get a variety of tones in the piece.

A detail of the finished Blank Botanical #1 piece

The strips all prepped and ready to be attached to the canvas

The second piece consisted of hundreds of little strips of paper. I drew repetitive lines all over these pieces and then glued them onto a long, narrow white canvas in rows. The shape of the canvas itself is similar to the shape of the pieces of paper, and also to the shape of the lines I drew on the paper. I call it Line Study #3 and it's a design I've been working with for quite a while now and plan on continuing with. As you can see, a lot of my work deals with repetition and my techniques tend to be pretty labor intensive. The Blank Botanical piece took somewhere around 40 hours of work and I estimate my Line Study piece took about 15 hours. I often joke that I don't like to work on anything that's not obsessive. Most people who see me work on these things just think I'm nuts because, to them, that kind of tedious task would drive them crazy. But it's just the opposite for me. I find the work to be meditative, and for this reason I find the method to be as important as the final result.

Anyway, after all that I hope at least one of the pieces gets into the show. I love The Morgan and it's because of them that I work so much with paper lately. It would be a real honor to have a piece of mine included in their first juried show and, let's be honest, the exposure would be great. I'll keep my fingers crossed. 

Holy Toledo!

I was lucky enough to have a three day weekend during this unseasonably warm March weather and I took full advantage. My windows are open and the front porch has been heavily in use over the past few days.

While Friday was dedicated to running errands and cleaning the house, and Sunday was spent relaxing, reading, and dinner with friends, Saturday the husband and I took a road trip to Toledo to visit the art museum. It was a perfect day for a drive and our route took us through some areas that were great for viewing wildlife and beautiful scenery.

I'd been to Toledo once, back in 1999 for a special exhibit of the artist Sandy Skoglund. My high school art teacher told my class about the show and I was so taken with the artist's colorful installation pieces, that I pestered my dad to drive myself and a friend to the museum until he relented. That show was spectacular and my visit to the museum this past weekend was just as good. Not only does the Toledo Museum of Art have an impressive permanent collection, their current display was one of the best exhibits I've seen in a long time. The exhibit, called Small Worlds, showcases five contemporary artists working in small scale. The featured artists are: Gregory Euclide, Joe Fig, Charles Kanwischer, Lori Nix, and Tabaimo.

The two bodies of work that stood out the most for me are Lori Nix's post-apocalyptic scenes of abandoned buildings, which aren't real structures at all but sets that she fabricated herself and photographed, and Joe Fig's dollhouse-like models of famous artist's studios, rendered down to the tiniest detail. My litmus test for whether or not I think a work of art is good, is if I'm jealous of the piece, and I was definitely jealous that I hadn't created such brilliant things as, not only Lori Nix and Joe Fig, but all of the artists in the exhibit. 
 
The exhibition runs through March 25th, so if you're in the Toledo area before then, I highly recommend checking it out.  

It was great to have a few days off and to get out of the house. It's always really inspiring to see some art. It makes me start thinking about what I might want to make next. I have too little time for creativity these days, so it's nice to do something that reminds me about that part of myself and prompts me to get working.