Drawings as Sculptures?

I was cleaning up and rearranging my studio a couple of weeks ago, and I pulled out these large, rolled up works on paper.  I was thinking they were good fodder to cut up and rework.  But now I'm wondering about the roll as a display strategy itself.  Can a drawing be a sculpture?

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Maybe I'm thinking a little bit of this Polly Apfelbaum work from 2000, Bones:

Polly Apfelbaum, Bones, 2000, image from D'Amelio Gallery website

Possibilities?

End of summer produce

Some quick studio shots of mixed media works on paper I made in my summer studio:

I keep returning to this rhombus or trapezoid shape; it's been a fixture for two or three years now.  To me it signifies a tent.  Other people see coffins or diamonds.

Another thing I made this summer:

This installation is at Gallery B in downtown Bethesda, MD.  It's my representative piece for the 2013 Trawick Contemporary Art Prize.  Prizes announced this coming Friday, September 6.  Wish me luck!

Summer Studio

So, my summer residency dream did not come to fruition.  But I realized, hey, I can make my own change of scene.  So I set up a temporary summer studio upstairs, on our enclosed sleeping porch.  I still have to make my own breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but at least I only have to share a shower with one other person and two small parrots.  Not a bad trade off.

Hey, it's even got windows!

February Studio Pictures

Sometimes when I don't have any ideas, I give myself assignments.  Usually, those assignments are to paint from life whatever is around me.  For the last few weeks I've been using watercolor, inspired by the watercolor class I taught last semester at GWU.

Small watercolors of studio scenes, a new series from the last few weeks.

Studio watercolors detail.  On the right a work table is pictured.  A painting of a stack of paintings is on the left.

Hello again!

Hello blog, sorry to leave you dangling for all of 2012.  Here's to doing better in 2013.

Last year, these things happened:

Finished up my residency at Montgomery College.

 Was invited to be in a two-person installation show with John Watson at Carroll Square Gallery, organized by Shira Kraft of Hempfill Fine Art, during the summer.

 Basement studio remodel!  Ripped out all the drywall, added lots of lights.  Most of my summer was spent on this massive project.  So worth it.

Iceland!

 A solo show at Flashpoint, combining installation & painting, to close out the year.

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

Fleshing It Out

i've been asked a lot recently (both on the radio and by others) about my newer paintings, what they are about, why so many of them contain kitchen scenes, etc. i'm trying to figure this out myself.

these paintings were all made within the last year once i got a studio set up here in washington. when we left LA, i was working in an abstract manner, using memories of my daily experiences driving around town....that meant i was looking at landscape, the outside world around me: neons, car crashes, wildfires, steep hillsides, tropical gardens, smog. once i got to work here in DC, i took that way of working that i had developed (really paying attention to visual experiences on a day-to-day basis and making an effort to file them away in my memory, then working from memory without outside references) and applying them to my daily life and studio work now. so, that's resulted in a greater attention to interiors and working from my memories of other dwellings i have lived in or had important experiences in. my focus has been on working on our house, and that has come out in my work too. i seem to be gravitating towards kitchens, maybe for the reasons i talked about in the audio clip. they are centers of intense work and creativity, just like a studio. they are rooms we associate with good things: nourishment, love, family, social connections. there are also just really complex places to look at, so many nooks, crannies, nobs, bells, whistles, etc.

the bold black lines and messy paint and patterns are a compositional device. i think they are also a way to convey the way memories are incomplete, incorrect, and very hard to get down on paper like they appear in your head.

so, that's me trying to articulate my thoughts as of now. i'm headed back to LA for the weekend and am interested to see how i will perceive that city this time around. ciao!

Recent Press

DC Emerging at VisArts in Rockville, MD, has been getting some media attention. Here's the roundup:

Gazette.net:
http://www.gazette.net/article/20110713/ENTERTAINMENT/707139762&template=gazette

Washington City Paper:
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/artsdesk/visual-arts/2011/07/19/reviewed-dc-emerging-at-visarts/

And possibly the most exciting, since I am an NPR fangirl:
http://wamu.org/news/11/07/24/visarts_showcases_five_local_emerging_artists.php#.TixJqaR_jW0

(image is one of the paintings in the show: Night Kitchen: Chinese Dog)

Ketchup!

Too many art things have been happening to quickly to blog about. So, here's a 30-second catch-up post.

Paintings that have been hanging around for months have been finished in a flash (Green Flamingo at left).

Some friends have left. Others have arrived. Others will be reconnected with next week over coffee.

Unexpected new favorite things have been found.

Shows have been seen.

And upcoming in the next few days:
DC Emerging at VisArts in Rockville (I have paintings in this one)
Porch Projects #3

Contain, Maintain, Sustain opens at Artisphere

Opening Reception: Thursday, May 19, 7-10pm Curator Talks: Saturday, May 21, 3pm with Sara Reisman; Saturday, June 11, 3pm with Welmoed Laanstra; Saturday, June 25, 3pm with Ernesto Santalla at Artisphere, 1101 Wilson Boulevard, Arlington, VA 22209

New Work at Artisphere

I spent last week creating a new installation, titled Dredge, at Artisphere in Arlington, VA. This work is part of a large group exhibition opening next week, May 19. Here it is in stages:

Spring Solos 2011 Now on View at the Arlington Arts Center

I am pleased to be part of the Arlington Arts Center's Spring Solos 2011 exhibition, which opened last Friday. Here are a few images of the new work I created for the exhibition, titled Forest of Correction. Spring Solos 2011 is up through June 5.

DC Women Artists Now Reception, 4/5

The reception for DC Women Artists Now at Gallaudet University was a lovely time of hot tea and good conversation.

Work by Gretchen Schermerhorn in the foreground, and Carolina Mayorga in the background

Work by Annie Albagli in the foreground, and me in the background

Work by Michelle McAuliffe in the foreground, with the conclusion of Kendall Nordin's drawing performance in the background

Carolina Mayorga with work by Kristina Bilonick

Kristina Bilonick & Kendall Nordin

DC Women Artists Now at Gallaudet University

I have two large works on paper up in the Linda K. Jordan Art Gallery at Gallaudet University right now. It's really nice to learn about and develop a relationship with this institution in my own neighborhood. It's also nice to show with such a great group of local artists.