MC Studio: What's Up Now

The state of things right this minute in my studio. Big things, small things, watercolor, screen prints, black gesso.

New Year, New Digs

I'll be serving as the artist-in-residence in the Cafritz Center at the Takoma Park, MD, campus of Montgomery College during spring 2012. Check out this beautiful studio I'll be working in:




I've also got a painting up in the George Washington University Faculty Show, in the Classroom 102 gallery. The show will be up for a couple of weeks as we settle into the new semester.

Lecture Notes: Elizabeth Peyton @ SAAM

Last week I went to hear painter Elizabeth Peyton speak about her work at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. She used an unusual but lovely method of doing so. She made a short statement at the beginning of her presentation, then showed us over 100 images of her works in silence. They were projected large on a screen at the front of the auditorium; a few members of the audience seemed annoyed by the lack of narrative and departed. Most of us, however, sat in rapt attention watching the luminous images flash by.

After the slideshow, Peyton took many questions from the audience. Here are my notes on some of her answers.

-Painting is love & beauty & history captured two-dimensionally and telegraphed back to us over time.
-Literature (especially In Search of Lost Time & Balzac's writings) is very important to her, especially in understanding the life of the artist.
-She likes to work in a smaller scale and tries to make her paintings project into a room, to take up the maximum amount of space with a small amount of materials
-Printmaking generates a productive awkwardness. It is freeing because no one is expecting anything, and one can make a lot of work at once.
-She feels very connected to Romanticism, especially that Romantic sense of being totally alive.
-Painting communicated transcendence in human beings. It captures what is transcendent in an individual (beauty, vision, intelligence, etc.) and communicates that across time.
-The best things she got out of art school are good friends and learning to be self reliant.

(image: Elizabeth Peyton, Live to Ride (E.P.), 2003)

Press and Pics

Some press about my recent exhibitions:
-Pink Line Project
-Washington City Paper
-Washington Post
-Washington Post Slideshow

And some pics!

Station Fire, part of Site Aperture at Flashpoint Gallery




Studio, in the Project Room at Harmon Art Lab

What I've been doing...

Installing at Harmon Art Lab, opening this Saturday, October 8, 6-8 pm (paintings in the photo are by Michel Modell.)

(There was that thing last week also, at a little place called Flashpoint. It's a pretty kick-ass show.)

Lecture Notes: Ann Hamilton @ NGA

Last Friday I was one of Washington's lucky few who got to hear genius/visionary/artist Ann Hamilton speak at the National Gallery of Art. AMAZING. I think the whole audience would have sat there and listened to her til midnight if the museum had allowed her to go on that long (unfortunately for us, they cut her off at 5 because the building was closing. Lame!).

She had a beautiful way of using anecdotes about her life, work, and creation thereof to explain her underlying ideas and philosophies of art making. Here are my notes:

-A studio practice allows you to pay attention to what you pay attention to. A studio cultivates the situation for this to happen.
-Art is a process of finding what you need.
-Conditions for that finding are created and cultivated in the studio.
-A studio is therefore a metaphorical space, and can be wherever an artist deems fit.
-Things she pays attention to: forms of attention, felt qualities, processes of accumulation.
-An empty table is like a blank page.
-Art can satisfy the longing for a presence so acute that you lose self awareness.

I only wish I had written more down!

< complaint > National Gallery, do us artists here in Washington a solid and publicize this stuff more, will ya? Act like it's the big deal that it is? And maybe also invite these major, major figures like Ms. Hamilton to speak at a time when more of us can attend? Because lots of us have day jobs. Also, universities? Why weren't more students in attendance to hear this contemporary master? Because I think it would have been educational for them. < / complaint >

Opening Tonight: HOPE CHEST

I've got three paintings in a group show that opens tonight near Mt. Vernon Square in Washington. This show was curated by painter Rebecca Kallem, who has a great eye for juxtaposing artworks. Check out Hope Chest, then head over to WPA's Options show nearby!

HOPE CHEST
Group exhibition curated by Rebecca Kallem
With artists Elle Perez, Katherine Sifers, Dafna Steinberg, Erin Murray, Chandi Kelley, and Michelle McAuliffe
Greenhouse 11
1123 11th Street NW, Washington, DC
Opening reception: September 15, 2011, 6-9:00 pm
Exhibition available by appointment at other times.

WPA Options 2011
curated by Stephanie Fedor
629 New York Avenue NW, Washington, DC
Opening reception: September 15, 2011, 6-8:00 pm