2010 Chicago Art Open

I'll be participating in the 2010 Chicago Art Open at River East Art Center.



This painting will be on display. If you happen to be in the River East area, check out this juried group show of up and coming Chicago artists.

New Camera.

Today at a thrift store I purchased one of these:


A disc film camera from the 1980's. I'd love to start using it; if anyone has any idea where to buy film, please let me know. They discontinued it in 1998 apparently, although it's still possible to get it developed. I'm ever-so-curious about the quality of the prints.

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.

Updated Artists Statement

I'm applying for the 2010 Chicago Art Open, and had to update my artists statement. Thought I'd post it in here, so you can get an idea of what I'm thinking lately.

I intend for my work to be an entry point to a discussion of the failures of visual communication and an exploration of the shortcomings of the visual storage and transmission of data. I seek inspiration from etymology, diagrams, museum displays, the written word and other arenas where the visual is the chosen mode of communication. My work seeks to highlight the parallax between the attempted/intended meaning of the pure visual object and its new—and perhaps more real—meaning, once filtered through the stored knowledge of the viewer. I attempt to find the objective ‘truth’ of the transmission in the space between.

Visual artifacts—I believe—are often more isolated from their meaning by the passing of time and the adaptation of surrounding symbols than words are, due perhaps to the frequency to which we use (and adapt) our verbal symbols as compared to our visual. I believe it is imperative for the artist, as one who has chosen the visual to communicate ideas, to acknowledge this gap, and I have chosen to work with it and highlight it in my own work.

I'm also taking some more photos of newer work; I've come up with a way to light them so they don't look totally amateur, just a little.

Field Museum

At the Field Museum's [permanent] Africa Exhibit today, I noticed for the first time a plaque noting examples of African-American genius. Among the many worthy list items (medical discoveries, inventions of great worth, famous artists and actors) were listed "The High Five" and "Charismatic Preaching".

Really?

Aside from the obvious racial blunder, this is another of many examples of the Field Museum's lack of upkeep and updating. The anthropological/ethnographical sections are sadly ethnocentric and, while well-intended I'm sure, often culturally patronizing. In the 'Nature Walk' exhibit of taxidermy animals there are many removed display items, and many of the animals show wear. This is not to mention the telephones that connect you to imaginary computerized park rangers, mounted below signs that say 'listen to this cup'. The phones don't work anyway.

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.

Somewhat Troubling

In Newcity Art's blog, I found an small article about a peculiar fund raising technique happening at the Art Institute of Chicago. Individual 'dots' in Seurat's La Grande Jatte are being 'adopted' for $10 each. I suppose this is something like having a star named after you; you retain some unseen tie to the star, but can't actually hold it or have it or really even be sure someone else hasn't also named it after themselves. I have to wonder, is there a time-limit on this adoption? If the museum ever decides to sell the painting (highly unlikely, but let's consider it), what happens to the dots? This brings to mind, albeit tenuously, Rindy Sam's kissing of a Cy Twombly painting, then attempting to claim it a collaboration. It's startling how little control over a work of art an artist retains once it's hung on someone else's wall.

Obviously, the Seurat example is one of creative fund raising and little to worry about. Perhaps I am so struck by it because I am in the middle of reading I Sold Andy Warhol (Too Soon) and have a head full of talk of monetary and ownership considerations in the art world. This is not to say that I'm not a bit disgusted by the book; Richard Polsky's protestations that he's merely going with the flow- that the art world is leaving good dealers *cough*middlemen*cough* like him behind and what can he do but sell paintings like oil futures- are a bit too much. He expresses lament over the state of his beloved art world and it's pursuit of monetary over cultural gain, all the while a little too careful to compare his lowly hotel rooms with those of his clients. And as a side note, the digs at his gold-digging ex-wives are as unnecessary as they are ugly. Who cares, anyway? This book, ostensibly about the art world, is at it's core a book meant to alleviate Polsky's guilt over joining the race to break records at auction-houses.