Kiteline

Some of you may remember the call to artists I mentioned in December. Since then my print has been completed, shipped, sparred for flight by kitemaker Scott Skinner, and sent onto to Japan.

Despite all the terrible tragedy that visited Japan at the beginning of the year, some things resolutely stayed on course; in March, the print show opened in Kyoto at the 6th Kyoto International Washi Association Exhibition and in the beginning of June showed again at the 1^st International Mokuhanga Conference in Kyoto. My print joins a group of other print and kitemakers' work as well as some innovative larger kitework by Yoshizumi Nobuhiko (who also makes very small kites, some only a few mm in size) and Scott Skinner's own work. The show will travel a bit more this year before retiring.

It's a bit of a thrill for me to know my work has traveled a world away and has a long journey ahead of it before finding a new home.

Kiteline (in process)

13" diameter

woodblock print on mulberry paper

Though I've explored the image of a tangle for a long while, it resonants particularly well for a kite as anyone who has noted a pile of line at a flier's feet. When in the sky, this kite reflects what is on the ground, mediated by a thread and the hand holding the the line between them.

The composition for the print was created by sketching with ready-made cotton line dropped from above as it might be in flying a kite and recording my favorites until I settled on one to make. Tempting as it was to use handspun for my sketches as I do with Specimens, I refrained, as it seemed most appropriate to use line that the kite would fly on to maintain gestural symmetry. 

This above/below symmetry mediated by the hand shows up in my Spindle drawings too, albeit less visibly in the completed works. During creation of the drawings, I draw the image from above the prepared paper which lays horizontally. The roving of wool is tamed into a line by hand and the spindle holding a piece of graphite below it draws a roving line into chaotic masses.

My to-do list includes sparring and bridling one of the extra prints of Kiteline and flying it myself soon. In the proper circumstances the sun will illuminate the kite from behind, and the tangle will glow through paper left bare of ink.

For now here's a few images from the printing of:

This printing ink smells divinely of burnt linseed oil.

 When counterspace ran out, the oven became a drying rack.

Further Reading:
Scott Skinner reflects on process, the exhibit, and presents more of the submitted prints in Kitelife magazine here.

next wave and delighted

Though my blog has lain largely fallow, my art practice continues to grow.

Recently, my Spindle Drawings were selected for an exhibit in South Florida at the Lighthouse ArtCenter Museum for Next Wave: Young Contemporary Artists which consists of Floridian artists under the age of 35. The opening reception was held Friday and it will remain up through September 1st with a few more events associated with it between now and then, so if you find yourself in the West Palm Beach area in the meantime, please visit the museum to see the show.

I'd also like to mention Traces of Spun II received Best in Show. I'm honored and pleased.

  Traces of Spun II 

graphite on paper  
22" x 30"

(made with handspindle)

Within the gallery space, my drawings were paired with a few ceramic pieces by Ronald J. Shaw whose work is featured on the bottom right of the show's flyer. His process involves creating marks on stoneware by dropping horsehair on the pots during firing which ignites and carbonizes on the surface. Our works complemented one another quite well as both of our processes in creating linework require relinquishing a certain amount of control while maintaining restraint.

Of the twenty five artists represented, a few of the works that stood out to me particularly: Nathan Selikoff's generative digital works which transcend the sometimes harsh surfaces of digital art to reveal something more ephemeral as if recording flashes of natural phenomena, Sarah Nastri's delicate collages of transferred trees on surface embossed with snatches of lace, Rachel Rossin's mythical oil paintings depicting tropical esoteric mythologies (see her painting on the top of the flyer), and Micheal Bauman's sculptures, my favorite of which is Remembrance which is a glass topped box holding a grid formation and ammonia crystals grown within.

The event was also the first time I'd seen Kalina Winska's paintings for the show in person. Kalina and I met just over a year ago, and I've enjoyed seeing her work develop as she's veered through drawing, sculptures and back to her original medium, painting. I am looking forward to seeing more of what these swirling worlds hold.

Kalina and I also have a special project in the works that we'll share soon.

Here's my favorite of the Kalina's work in the show:

Kalina Winska

This Far and No Farther

oil on canvas

26" x 26"

Tanglebook as obfuscation and revelation

My entry for the 2011 Brooklyn Art Library Sketchbook Project is perhaps less a collection of sketches and more a sketch itself for a later work.

I've wanted to explore my Tangle sculptures as more tangible objects, allowing others (and myself) to walk through the tangles and see how the relationships between them change as the book is paged through.

I believe if you click on the image you'll see the whole book as a slideshow.

Erin Curry. Tanglebook. graphite on vellum. (c) 2010-2011. collection of the Brooklyn Art Library.

in progress here

note: I'm catching up around here and posting things LOoonG overdue at the date closer to when they happened. Those of you using blogreaders, I hope you'll forgive any confusion as to why posts a year old are showing in your feed.

Thrice

The third in this series finally marks a feeling of familiarity with the drawing spindle. With this tool, greater proficiency comes with a need to mindfully let go of rigid rules, to find a way to coax a specific line and tether a delicate drawing without binding it.

Traces of Spun #3
22" x 30"
graphite on paper

Traces of Spun #3 (detail)
22" x 30"
graphite on paper

spun drawn

Two waited a long time. Month after month passed as small studio experiments joined its side on the daylit wall. The place of open air contemplation ever shifted as wisps of graphite, paper, mylar, and silk came and went, all except for this white rectangle with the quiet buzz in its middle.  

The barest hint of spring brought it through my hands again, this time to completion and followed swiftly by its sister.

Traces of Spun #2
22" x 30"
graphite on paper

click to see larger

The long incubation period makes all the more appropriate the final form held within holds the ending of division or beginnings of connection.

treelines

Vascular winter.
Bare lines against stark cold white.
Subtly moving drawing.

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.