This week I visited MassMoCA and the Brooklyn Museum, SoWa galleries in Boston, and met my mentor.
Before beginning this process, I'd installed work in MAC650 Gallery, including a landscape that I'd "banged out" in the short time between the residency and the show. I noticed small differences in the way I rendered this landscape versus past renderings. After the residency and after exposure to more Modern and Contemporary art than I'd ever been exposed to, the landscape became more gestural than realistic and I'd strayed from the colors in the original image I'd taken.
Golden, CO. 24x48in Acrylic on Canvas
Museums and Galleries
After the show, I headed to Boston for a group trip to MassMoCA . I was able to make First Friday at the SoWa galleries, and came across the work of Beth Carter.
Beth Carter's sculptures are haunting and somber bronze casts. The sculptures marry the male figure with beast. I felt shame, alienation, and inadequacy from the sculptures. Some forms hold small books and read them intently, the books too small to be easily read. The books seem sacred and secret to the figures. The heads are bowed, heavy and resigned.
The next morning, we visited MassMoCA. The Nick Cave installation was most impactful for me, specifically a piece that spelled "Flow" in tinsel hung on a rack and blown by a dozen or so fans. Before entering the room I thought I heard rain because of the rustling tinsel. The white noise was both calming and alarming. Within the room, black, sapphire, and silver tinsel wriggled ahead forming the word "FLOW." The Nick Cave exhibit explored environment through tactile, visual, and audible modalities. The sound was most striking to me and makes me wish to explore sound in future work.
Cloud Installation by Nick Cave
Nick Cave installation, photo from MassMoCA.org
Meeting my Mentor
I met Wendy Jacob in Boston after the MassMoCA visit. I was recommended Wendy during my final critique at residency. After researching her work and wondering how in the hell anyone could have a brain like that, I'd sent her an email requesting her guidance. Among many other achievements, Wendy adjusts environments through installation art and functional furniture. I found Wendy's ceiling and doorway installations most breathtaking. The breathing architectural structures seem like living organisms occupied by people. It's soothing and satisfying to see the life act of breathing reflected in usually inanimate objects. Wendy Jacob's "Walls" installation at The Whitney in 1991 shows the breathing here.
After looking over my portfolio and discussing my residency with Wendy, she made recommendations of research and practice I should accomplish before we meet again.
Recommendations from Wendy
- Look at art
- Kiki Smith **because of my interest in the female figure and Beth Carter's work
- Tim Rollins KOS **because of my role as a teacher and how I can use this role to inform art
- Antony Gormley **because of my response to Beth Carter's work and interest in sculpted figures
- Read
- Georges Bataille "Big Toe" **because of my Catholic background and its inescapable seepage into all of my ideas, and because of my interest in feet, connection, and the way feet are treated
- Golem and jewish folklore of men from clay **response to sculpture and my interest in developing base humans from clay
- Produce, Produce, Produce
- Use plasticine to practice sculpture and understand what I like about the process
- Take painting classes to cover the basic mechanics I'm missing due to a lack of formal background
- Learn to stretch canvas
- Learn to use a variety of brushes
- Learn from people, not online
- Work in acrylics because I have a background in it
- Paint the sculptures I make
- ITERATION as a way to uncover concept and DEVELOP FOCUS
- Pay attention to what I pay attention to--what am I attracted to and how can I incorporate it
- DON'T EDIT MYSELF.
Making Headway
Almost immediately after returning home from Boston I bought plastilina, another name for plasticine, and started sculpting a response to Beth Carter's work. I knew that I wanted to explore a female figure and that instead of shame, I wanted confrontation. I had a feeling that beast-headed men convey a lowering or lessening of power while beast women somehow elevated power. Though the first head has a similar somberness to Beth Carter, it seems more peaceful than shamed. The foreshortening of the giraffe neck seems confrontational and unbalanced, which makes me think of common views of assertive females in a patriarchy. I can continue to analyze my own work but really I just made it because it felt like I was going to make it, and then I did.
Instead of spending money on a full course, I'm working with a local grad who'd just completed his BFA at the Hartford Art School. Aedan O'Brien worked under the instruction of Cat Balco and other notable professors while completing his studies in painting. Yesterday he taught me to stretch and prime a canvas. He'll also instruct me on some mechanics of painting in the near future as our schedules allow. The benefit of this alliance is the one-on-one experience without paying for college credit. I'm fortunate to work with someone fresh out of a program focusing on professional painting technique. He is awesome, and here's what we did.
Today, I'm in Brooklyn. I've just finished a visit at the Brooklyn Museum. I'd gone to view a Georgia O'Keeffe installation (closing July 23rd), which was recommended by Wendy. Wendy wanted me to pay attention to the planning and preparation that went into Georgia O'Keeffe's image. From her collection of personally designed clothing to the color-tinted hills outside of her home in New Mexico, she controlled everything.
Her clothes mimic the simplicity and light/shadow relationship of her paintings.
I have more to share, but I'll probably use it in a future post alongside created product. Overall, I'm most fascinated with plastilina and am trying to develop molds to make the sculptures more permanent. I'm excited for future work.