on the new year

an inheritance of moldy books,
gifted to the flames
crackle and peel or fly on hot currents.
leaves rustle above and scatter below.

Already the end of the first month, I only just seem to be catching on to the new year of double 1s. Lots of things are floating in the air ready to be plucked and experienced and I couldn't be more excited about the year to come. There's always more to be said and more to show and I'm always relieved to see and hear from my blogger friends. What will we make this year? What will we gather close and nurture or burn and bury?

stare time

The third and most recent manifestation of my spindle drawing proves to me that abstraction can be tricky in numbers. When two or more abstractions sit together, they reach towards one another like curious infants, grasping strands of similarities and examining differences. The search for meaning springs from their nebulous forms and slowly those likenesses and differences fold in upon themselves, gathering complexity. Soon they are babbling.

Traces of Spun #3 (in progress)
graphite on paper, 22 x 30"

I resist the easy, stop to stare, to peek through the veil of possibilities, then work again, each step progressing the forms and progressively slower.
Careful, there is no return to a simpler state.

sketch

Spinning,
printing,
fixing
and layering
Portions of this week went to my Brooklyn Art Library sketchbook. The entire book itself sketches out one of the books/collections of drawings that have been haunting me,
and now made solid
Wisps of thought solidify and blur out again,
Layered galaxies,
extracted DNA strands,
microorganisms writhing, swimming in a sea of white,
more
more
more

donning a printer's cap

linear wanderings on birch ply
to be recorded on rice paper and then if all goes well
fly(call to artists)
relief printing has been far from my fingers for quite awhile,
and some things only return once in the midst of process
while new things are learned with a new medium.
linoleum, far more familiar, cuts smooth and washes clean with soap and water, while wood benefits from the brush of sandpaper to sooth rough edges and a soft brayer rolls ink into minor divots and grain more readily than the hard.
prints will come soon, but for now each step steadily follows the last.

new tangle.

                                        

Tangle 10.15.10

handspun wool, acrylic sheet, graphite and wood

18.5" x 8" x 5.5"

2010

 

achingly clean clear edges
a small monolith of captured string
loop upon loop
entangled and preserved
closer still
little sprigs of fiber sprout off in directions of their own
with puffs of black graphite dotting the inner facets

  peer directly through

and see the shadows

inset in a graphite base
buffed silver black.

Specimens

Specimens

handspun cotton thread, graphite, and cotton rag paper

each is 4” x 6”

2009-2010

A couple of days ago this work returned home from Gallery 817. The collection of work in the show felt quite strong and associating this small series with other work refreshed my thoughts and got my mind churning in new directions.

Now that they are up on the wall at home again I find myself orienting  my body in their direction just to gaze at them in the brief pauses between tasks. Following the sinuous paths brings me to the many moments throughout my life where I've paused at the edge of darkened pools to stare into the ever patterned ripples of water or studied raindrops streaking down a window. If given the freedom of time, I will sit for hours, mesmerized, watching for the perfect repeat and never quite able to grasp them.

In many ways this collection excites the same feeling even as it satiates it.  An obsessive gaze is finally allowed to rest on preserved individuals for contemplative study. Here are only fifteen, but many more await capture.

from the sketchbook archives

Threads drawn by machine and threads drawn by hands imprinted on paper with graphite.  The ambiguity of whether these are prints or drawings pleases me.

an elusive silver

When my mother died, most of her art supplies and tools found a new home in my studio. Among the pencil stubs, pastels, paper and jewelry tools was a jar of graphite powder. Its presence deeply comforted me. Some of my earliest memories of toddling around my mother's studio were of the little plates of powder set on her worktable just at my eye level and the stern admonishment to keep away from them. When she sharpened her drawing pencils she'd save the graphite scrapings and use it and the jarred stuff to brush soft veils of grey onto her detailed drawings. My current work uses lots of graphite, but my mother's jar is unusual. The powder within reflects a silver gray rather than the velvety black found in my own jars.

The silver tantalizes me in the same way certain shades of blue found in the sky do. My eyes are simultaneously hungry and full.

Despite the draw for this particular shade of gray, I've been unable to bring myself to use it beyond a tiny bit of experimentation without knowing I can find it elsewhere and let this particular jar stick around. Yes, I'm a sentimentalist. Is it truly Sennelier graphite as the label suggests or a rarer shade of thousands of pencil shavings? I've looked a bit from time to time without luck for the same shade of silvered grey, until a few weeks ago when an artist I spoke to mentioned Kremer's Pigments carried powdered graphite of differing shades. They do have something labeled silver graphite and it's on its way here. Perhaps it's what I'm looking for.

vitality

comes from play

pARTy at 817

opening Friday at 7pm-2am

a group exhibition featuring works by a diverse group of more than 28 artists.

The show presents works by:

John Burns, Erin Curry,Richard Heipp, Nathan Sapio, Julia Morrisroe, Kristin Reeves, Varian Wolf, Zach Castedo, Dan Luo, Margaret Ross Tolbert, Donald Keefe, Camille DeMarinis, Stacy Streeter, Lauren Garber Lake,Leah Floyd, Kate Helms, Andrew Hendrixson, Chisum Justus, Logan Marconi, Galen Olmsted, Carrie Smith, Donna Flannery, Joshua Kubisz, Dandee Pattee, Kalina Winska, Charlie Cummings, Chloe Rothwell, Nicole Yatulis, Brian Weaver

817 SW 5th Avenue, Gainesville, FL 32601
Show Dates (by appointment): September 4 – October 2, 2010
Contact: gallery817@gmail.com

Gallery 817, the brainchild of Kalina Winska and Galen Olmsted, brings a new art venue to Gainesville. It's a small space with lots of potential for experimentation and creative growth. I'm thrilled to be a part of the debut show.