random lunacy

some people might see this documentary and think the guy is just nuts. i admit, he scoots close to the edge. but last night tod and i watched this on hulu and we could not take our eyes off the screen. i'm not sure i've ever seen anything quite like this, nor known anyone like 'Poppa Neutrino'. he of course is living an artists life. that he dragged his family into it for as long as they would tolerate it or could grow up to make their own lives, well some might raise eyebrows but when speaking about their lives in front of the camera his kids were well spoken and wise beyond their years. i wouldn't have wanted to live as they did and i'm not sure what he could have/would have done on his own but i have to admire someone who lives with such tenacity.

what i came away with after watching this was the difference between those who are homeless and 'victims of it' ie stay in the same area, suck off of the system, drink/drugs, and leech off society vs someone like poppa who chose to be homeless and ended up travelling/doing more than almost anyone i've ever known. what an inspiration in such an unexpected way!

website here. news page.

friday new art finds: Antony Gormley

Standing Matter, XVIII

Shrive II, 2008
Antony Gormley

i'm thrilled to have a friday new art finds this week! thank you Margaret for thinking of me and my little wood assemblages when you sent me Antony Gormley's link.

this body of work consists of 'standing figures made of cast iron variable blocks'. i never feel comfortable 'lifting' too much written information about someone from another website without permission, so please visit this link to find out the specifics on this body of work and here to read his bio on his website.

a brief bio: Antony Gormley was born in London in 1950 and received a degree from Trinity College, Cambridge in archaeology, anthropology and history of art. Upon completing his undergraduate studies, he traveled for three years in India before returning to enroll in Londonʼs Central College of Art, Goldsmithʼs College, and the Slade School of Art. Gormleyʼs works have been the subject of group and solo exhibitions in numerous, international museums and galleries as well as international art festivals such as the Venice Biennale and Kassel Documenta 8. He was awarded the Turner Prize in 1994, was made an Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1997 and has been a Royal Academician since 2003.

it wasn't until i went to his website that i realized i knew his work. i'm sure most of you would recognize the forms standing alone in water. all looking like an army of spooky talismen, mute and void of anything but perhaps an unwelcome murmur of bleak messages. maybe you don't feel that when you see them but i do. they kind of creep me out.

so when i saw these wood sculptures and delved further into his site i found more photos that made my mouth drop open. this one to the left, 'Bodies at Rest II', while tumorous and slightly repulsive, is also beautiful and irresistible. i imagine it is cold, hard. unpleasant to touch but all i want to do is embrace this curled up form. lay right next to it and hold on. as too do his above figures intrigue me to no end. they are complicated and busting with energy. bionic almost. these forms are so full of life that they pierce me right through the monitor screen. they are like a beautiful animal that i cannot wait to touch and pet, yet wild enough to scare me from handeling.

and below, domain field. this is where the magic happens in art. true magic. how is it possible that these 'stick' assemblages that seemingly do not touch each other ~ defy gravity and space and claim just enough territory to exist? i love them. they are truly otherworldly. gentle and yet menacing. i love it when art excites me and confuses me and leaves me with the same sort of awe and wonder that is usually reserved for children. i hope you enjoy this weeks friday new art finds! if you have an artist in mind who you think i might not be aware of please send me a link and i will mention your blog/website too.

Domain Field, 2003
Antony Gormley

word of mouth

all i can say is, for me, word of mouth has been the only way i have ever gotten into a gallery, exhibition, and most times sold art. so i owe a big thank you to cynthia who has put in a word and by dint of that, i am for sure in a show march 13th. below you can see one of her beautiful watercolor paintings that is for sale on etsy, as well as one of the soon to be highlights for the eco/green show in conroe, texas. the gallery is the Linda Watson Art Gallery on main street. yesterday i went in and showed some work (which i was able to leave there thank you!) and will bring more in by the 1st of march. while the show will only last a week, and it isn't a large gallery, they are interested in carrying at least one piece on an ongoing basis. Jean and Joe are the owners and have also started a saturday outdoor market that could be another possibility for my smaller works come nicer weather. it was good to get out and have a positive reaction to my puzzle work and mixed media assemblages. beacon of hope....

Fragile Planet by Cynthia Reid
available on etsy

failure

when i think back to 2005, not that long ago so its easy to dig into my mental archive, i remember trying like the devil to drill through some rusty steel and not making a DENT. i figured it couldn't be done with a hand drill. tod and i knew nothing. NOTHING. we actually took the steel to a hardware store and had the guy drill through it to show us how to do it. what we realized was, the house drill that i was using sucked. i knew not one thing about power tools. drill bits. how to do much more than use a screwdriver, one could argue over even THAT.

i have had a steep learning curve but as my work becomes more functional the learning curve is more like a steep 45 degree angle being attempted at a high speed. you are bound to have accidents. things will die. pieces have to be put back together. as with the above piece. my puzzle table. i had the fancy idea about putting wheels on it, thinking if it rolled around there would be less picking up of it, less chance to ruin it. what i wasn't thinking about was physics. i was more obsessed with how it looked so i wanted those wheels to be tight inside. any idiot would probably know that isn't going to work but we all know my poor brain cells have long been destroyed and i dont have much to work with. after two attempts to get those wheels on (the first attempt failed so i had to unscrew the wood blocks which were heavily gooped/glued and double toe nailed screwed in before i even screwed all the wheels on) i finally got em on. i carefully turned this bitch over and had her on the ground to show tod. then i got rough with it to 'test' it. almost like i wanted to break it just to see if it would survive. it didn't. it toppled over after an attempt to make it wobble too much...just one too many heavy handed pushes and BAM! a blast to the concrete floor and the top broke clean off the base. just like that. destroyed.

what i love about fucking up my art is, i then have a chance to make it better and do it differently. yes. love. its sadistic. if it didn't pass the test it wasn't good enough. the tests aren't kind and oftentimes not consciously intentional. but when i look back at all the failures i see that if i stuck with whatever it was that was driving me crazy, i always came up with something better. the worst part about screwing up a puzzle piece is the agonizing amount of time that is completely lost. the gallons of glue can be replaced but the time is gone. it isn't usually a peaceful meditative time for me when i'm doing something so repetitive and boring in an unpleasant environment. tough tomatoes isn't it. thats the insane thing. no one has a gun to my head telling me to spend a month gluing puzzle pieces together so why am i doing it? thats an artist for you. i guess.

no friday art find

i couldn't find a new art find for today. and truth be told i haven't looked that hard. it either hits me or it doesn't. i've had enough to do online as it is. still writing blog posts for phoenix commotion, which takes more effort than this because i need to sound normal. thats exhausting. then there is my etsy blog, the more action i get on etsy the more i need to write on that. i'm slowly learning marketing skills and as of this weekend an official etsy team is being created by some etsy friends and i'm volunteering to get that blog up and running as well as a fan page on facebook. my friend here in texas, cynthia, has put in a good word for my art and looks like she and i will be in a show 2nd week in march in conroe, tx. a little gallery that is rather new but seems to be having success; they are wanting to do an 'eco show'. then there is the art walk thing happening one of these fridays end of feb/early march. i'm working with the patience of a saint gluing thousands of puzzle pieces together for my puzzle table so i will have something new for the throngs of people i can only fantasize will show up for this. (cough cough)

having ups and down as usual. i knew i would have less sales after the move since i'm not active in the gallery in vermont. no new work for them means less sales. that means its all online right now and that means hours and hours of behind the scenes trying to be seen. that and my work is in flux. i did sell a candle holder on etsy yesterday....$25 isn't going to pay my rent but i have to admit i was pretty damn happy just to see something go out the door. its cold. its non-stop raining....i'm just taking it one day at a time. sometimes, one hour at a time.....

Redwood Assemblages on hold

well i've gotten up to #42 and have decided to take a break so i can finish something i started last summer. you can see all of these wood assemblages on my flickr page. i've had a blast making these. for those of you not clued in, these are all scrap pieces of redwood taken from a build site (permission to snatch the wood was granted). i was intrigued by some small 45 degree angle cut offs that i found and soon began collecting all of the spare bits and pieces of redwood. slats, chunks and even smaller chunks of wood that seemingly had come to the end of their road for possible use. the wood was reclaimed to begin with and was being used in one of the phoenix commotions' current projects. the jest of these pieces are, they are all 'framed' by triangles with the center being the highlight, the raison d'être if you will.

the challenge and thrill of working with wood, albeit small amounts and sizes, has led me to a new body of work that i cannot wait to get back to. but first i must finish a puzzle table i started last summer. its been sitting on my pile of moving boxes. in an effort to make some new art for a friday art walk i've decided this table will be included amongst my other functional tables all of which are made from found objects. this includes bones, wood, railroad scale patterns, and farm equipment. i should have my bone furniture back from the museum by then and hope to fill up the center of the space with my tables and candle holders. i can't be sure this table will work. last year i started a puzzle table and it fell apart, this time i'm hoping one chunk in the center instead of four will be more sturdy. so far it looks like a deadly puzzle mushroom. sure to be ugly, this table will also have a metal band around the puzzle table top. imagine a pizza pie with the crust made out of metal and the center filled with puzzle pieces. grotesque but someone has to do it.

friday new art finds: Leonard Drew

Number 38
Leonard Drew, 1994



Leonardo Drew Opening @ the Blaffer Gallery on May 15 from Michael Brims on Vimeo.

Number 92
Leonard Drew, 2004

Leonard Drew #28
rust, canvas, wood, 1992

Kim left a comment recently with this artists' name/link. the minute i saw his work, i felt that stab. that stab of oh shit. oh god. who does this? who am i? what am i doing? i am so puny. when i recovered....i looked at his work more and realized i will never do this and must appreciate that someone else did. does.

it would be silly of me to write about his work, i don't have the words to describe it. i have found some well written articles about him such as this one from the blaffer gallery. the article describes his career and process. i found another article in the houston chronicle by Douglas Britt that was also informative. click here to see more videos.

i can say, Leonard's sculptures inspire and cripple me all in one. i am inspired by his use of such scrippy scrap and his 'puzzling together' of pieces. i watched a video whereby he describes how his work was too big to get out of his studio so he learned to make puzzles out of it. piecing them together to be taken apart and put together in various ways, keeping it fresh and organic. i like his use of rust, cotton, fabric and of course, wood. his work looks like he has gone many miles in his artist journey, reminding me that anything is possible!

pulley candle holder

i've been remiss in posting things....a few weeks ago i listed a new candle holder made by combining a found pulley and a washer. its light, simple and perfect. a nice firm grasp around the center in case you are walking down a long dark tunnel. bottom lip has been sanded and wont scratch furniture.

see ya tomorrow...you know what friday is right? new artist finds day. can't wait to see the plethora of new art finds from you all on your blogs or links in my post tomorrow if you care to share that way.