Works in Progress

Unearthed

With awareness of the fact that I don't produce enough drawings to sustain my painting practice and the goal of regaining a skill that I have somewhat lost, I have started going back to unfinished painting ideas to make them into drawings instead. One image I found while looking through old photographs of my past studios is this one, based on a drawing of the United States I made from memory in 2005. Unfortunately, I cannot play this game with myself any more because I've compared the maps I make to the 'real' maps of the US too many times. The images I remember are no longer tied to my knowledge of the US but to my knowledge of US maps, so the goal of an honest representation of what I think the United States 'is' is unattainable. But here's what I thought once upon a time:



This painting was from a time when I was (even more than I am now) lost in the wilderness of painting technique. I'll be using this image to make a drawing from in the future, but for now it's just good to look at.

Update

Busy these days.

Have been staying up past bedtime, reacquainting myself with the darkroom. I'm not printing any serious work right now, just wanting to reinforce technical skills before getting involved in more meaningful projects. Nevertheless, I've been lucky enough to spend a few hours after work each day this week. Also making progress in the painting studio. One panel nearing completion, four in early stages, and one that's maybe halfway finished. After the holiday craziness is over, I need to devote a bit of energy into researching mediums and brushes, because I'm still unhappy with the surface of most of my paintings. Working on a panel base eliminates a lot of the texture, but I still find it distracting. It's not about the paint, after all. I've been wanting to work with spray paint for a long time, and maybe it's time to involve some high-quality acrylics. I'm not sure.

Around the Coyote Fall Festival 2009

A bit overdue, here are a few snapshots from my booth at the Around the Coyote Falls Arts Festival here in Chicago. I wasn't able to step back enough to get a shot of the whole booth, but here's the general idea:



With a close-up of one side:


And the other:


Here you can see that I was chosen one of the Curator's Choice's, the curator being Britton Bertran.

All in all the festival was a mixed bag. In general I felt let down by the venue. The poor (flickering) florescent lights combined with several empty booths and unpainted display walls left me with the feeling that those responsible for organizing the show didn't care as much about the presentation of the art as they ought to have. But I'm glad for the feather in my cap that is the Curator's Choice as well as the fact that I had the opportunity to sell a few pieces I've been carrying around for too long.

My work is too literal, my practice too controlled. Perhaps part of this is the start-stop nature of my working time. Most likely, that's a justification. I am going to make a series of pieces for no reason other than their creation.

It has always been, and continues to be, the case that I am afraid of failure.


Cecily Brown, Lagoon 2004


I've let the image take over the canvas, when in fact the WHOLE POINT is that the image means nothing. But I've never been a 'painterly' or expressive painter.

Hello, wall, my old friend. Can I beat my head against you one last time?

My excitement was short lived today when the 24 by 36 silkscreen I found in the old 'dungeon' at work turned out to have tears in the screen.

Currently working on:

I've been lax in my blogging lately. In point of fact, I'm currently a schizophrenic mix of busy and productive but also descending to new levels of laziness. I've been mining a taxidermist's supply catalog for imagery, to add a bit to the museum pieces, but I fear that the work is becoming too image-based. There is something a bit dicey about painting all these animals, it's not imagery that's been taken seriously when I've shown it. Perhaps I am copying too directly from my source imagery.

To hopefully alleviate this effect, I've recently taken up etching, taking a class at Spudnik Press here in Chicago. I like the idea of working some of this imagery into a book with a bit of abstract text that might serve as context for the rest of the work. There must be a way to force people to focus less on the recognizable subject matter and more on why it's being presented. I should clarify that I see this not as a flaw in the viewer, but a flaw in what they are being shown. (Although my opportunities for productive critique are few these days.)

Also, I have begun to read Seven Days in the Art World by Sarah Thornton. You can get an idea of the 'seriousness' in which Thornton presents her subject matter from this (and other) videos of the author I found on YouTube. I find her smiling and cutesy mannerisms annoying, and they are also somehow discernable in her writing. But it's a pleasant change to read about the art world in a way other than the hyper-verbose, dictionary-requiring style presented in ArtForum and many other magazines.



I should mention that I read this book in anticipation of AArt Chicago and the other, smaller fairs tied in with it which are set to descent on Chicago in about two weeks time.

a few shots from the Morpho Gallery show

I heard on NPR this morning, while washing a mountain of dishes, that the type of TV people watch influences their dreams. I kid you not, last night I dreamt an entirely original, full-color-animation episode of Futurama. I remember waking up afterwords, in the middle of the night, thinking that I had to remember that I dreamt that. But I didn't remember what 'the episode' was about.

It's a shame, because I could have sold it to Matt Groening for some money, which is exactly what I need right now. I've got 22 paintings hanging on my walls and three more unfinished in the studio, but I'm out of the supplies I need to continue. I've got a few oddly sized stretcher bars left, but no canvas. Work is slowing down, a combination of seasons and economic hoodoo, and I lack the funds to go out and buy more at the moment. [Next week?]

I'm trying to continue the visual presentation of information idea, but the paintings still feel a bit empty. The conflict I'm having is that that's kind of the point- they are intended to not convey any information. Ideally, they point to the fact that the 'informational' images I am using don't actually convey any information themselves. I'm just having a hard time getting them to convey THAT and not just look like failed nature studies or something. I'm hoping that as a group it will start to make more sense. That the connections between the individual pieces will lead the viewer a bit. For now, I'll be trying to work it out further in drawings I guess. Which could be a good thing in the end, I always let my drawing practice die.

In other news, there is a website now! If you got to this blog through a link on the site (Hi, Mom!), you already know. But if not, here's a link to stephanierohlfs.com. You can see a decent (and hopefully quickly expanding) selection of paintings and photos there. No drawings up yet.

"I come from outside."

Excuse the poor photo. Just a snapshot taken after working. But I wanted to post it for two reasons.

1) To prove that I am working. And to prove it not so much to whoever reads this (no one?) but to myself. That's more or less the point of this blog. To sort out thoughts and keep some sort of motivation going, but also to sort of broadcast myself. Not for 15 minutes of fame reasons, but more just because if I tell enough people that I'm working, then I had better really be working.

2) To continue the 'conversation' about what I'm painting about lately. This painting is so preliminary, it's a bit hard to tell what's going on. But it's not an aquarium, it's a wall full of taxidermied fish on display in a museum. This fits alongside the paintings of house plants and other taxidermied animals in the series about how we catergorize information. (I should mention that the colors are in progress, and the shapes have yet to be refined. It just took me forever to get the layout of all those damn fish in the right place.)

Trying to keep my mind in a certain place, I've been keeping myself occupied categorizing things for myself. Keeping track of perms and faces I see on the bus...observing things. I've come up with the phrase (mantra?) "I come from outside." I have it written on an index card and tacked up in my kitchen. It's a reminder to stay where I am and keep watching and processing and making drawings about it.

i believe in nothing[s]

In preparation for a job interview tomorrow, I have been assembling a sort of mini-portfolio. I haven't looked at the work i did in Rome for probably two years and I was struck by how much better it is than the paintings I am currently making. The old paintings are basically about nothing, almost purely visual [at least in their conception]. The current paintings are trying to be about something, and I can't get myself interested enough. They seem almost shy, maybe even a little bit bored with themselves. I have never really wanted to "say something" with anything I make. Maybe by trying to force a statement I have watered down whatever the paint itself was saying before.

The current body of work has focused on memory- differences between the memory of something and the thing itself specifically. I try to choose recognizable images, remove them from the context of my memory of them, and bring them into an iconic state. Ideally, this points out the flaws in the ideas of image-making as story-telling and communication. I have to be honest and say that this has not worked out terribly well. I am unsure of how to make a painting about the idea that something is actually nothing, but have the product of that thought be a something.

In any case, the visual is my strength and I should not be forsaking it for a deeper meaning. At least, not one that I have to impose artificially. I have hung several of my better pieces from the past on my bedroom walls (there is nowhere to hang them in my work space) and I am hoping that by exposure to them I will be able to steer my thinking back into a better place. I do not think that all this has been a waste, these last few years of painting. I have been stripping down and stripping down, and now the time has come, i believe, to build up again. To thicken the application of paint and be comfortable making real nothings again.