thoughts on control some and new work

Dandelions and Trefoils, originally uploaded by Light Pattern Movement.

So, I'm behind schedule. A week of drinking and general good-intentioned debauchery in New Orleans can have that effect. That said, its time to kick my own ass, double up on hours, and finish the last three cut outs I have planned for the semester. The new paper makes the cutting process faster, and (oh so much easier on my aching wrists), but of course OCD me takes over and uses this new found time to cut incy-teency holes that ants might have trouble fitting through. I need to get that under control, as there's no way 3 more windows are coming together in the next month If I keep being so uncontrollably anal-retentive.

Control, I think, is key word lately. I've written and revised several different artist statements in the last month, and I find I keep skirting the issue. Its always along the same lines: "organization…(imposing) order…compulsion….ritual…tedium…intricacy." What I'm avoiding, I think, is that I have very little logical control over myself when I make work -- I give myself restrictions to work within (…has to be a window, has to use plant structures…) and then I go absolutely out of my brain, copiously translating the organic forms I find via research into somewhat abstracted patterns. I am desperately afraid of leaving the smallest bits of white paper untouched. I have to consciously fight my own aversion to negative space to make sure whats left of the paper is strong enough to remain intact. In short, I work obsessively, and I'm not really sure how that feeds the content of my work, why I even do it, or if its worth it.

Ah, I'll figure it out. For now, lets see if I can get control of myself, and finish what I started.



Oh - and I forgot link to the new sets I have up on flickr. My work so far this semester can be found here.

Works in Progress

Irises and Dog's Mercury, originally uploaded by Light Pattern Movement.

Midterms, midterms, midterms: Since my junior independent crit went well, I've decided to post these. Currently I'm working on a series of (yes, you've guessed it) light boxes, that deal with my relationship to organization, religion, and spirituality (whatever that means). I'm using catholic architectural elements from churches -- windows for the most part -- slide images of plant cellular anatomy, and art nouveau design theory. I haven't quite figured out how they'll all come together yet, but I'll make it work. There (hopefully) will be 6 in total, and this time I'll be involving some wood-burning and maybe even a bit of ink drawing. We'll see.

The lit cut outs are up in my window, and still haven't been cleaned yet -- please pardon my mess. In the most recent ones, I've also switched to a cotton vellum, that allows me to be a lot more delicate with my knife. They're incredibly delicate, though, so this time around I'll be pressing them between sheets of glass. Kind of appropriate for the whole slide/window motif though, don'tcha think?

Katazome: Slides

Slides, originally uploaded by Light Pattern Movement.

Again, digital photography outwits me. There will be better pictures, later; ones that are hopefully a bit less burnt out, and not as green....eventually. Until then, here's what I've got:

Product:
This originated as project I did for a intro to fibers class last semester. I spent so much time mucking around with new processes and materials last fall (damn you teaching certification, and all your requirements!), that I feel like I didn't get to move forward in my own work. This was a neat experiment, though. I used the format of microscope slides to think about how information is presented visually, and what visual cues makes us try to "read" visuals, instead of merely "looking." I integrated some traditional Japanese cut patterns (scallops, fan shapes, the small repeated circles, and floral motifs) into the slides I used.

Process:
We had to research, and then give a presentation on the history of a form of textile, and then create a response project to the form of textile we researched. I did katazome, a Japanese tradition of resist dying using stencils and rice paste. First the paste is laid down through a stencil, then the dyes are hand painted on over the dried paste. The fabric steams, the dye sets, and then paste is massaged out of the fabric. Getting to know and then recreate a more then 700 year old tradition was awesome, if a bit of a bumpy ride. I documented most of the process, in case things went awry and I ended up with a brownish mess of cotton. All the photos are up, here, on flickr...

And thanks, of course, to Thom for all your help that night. Who needs an industrial strength mixer to mix paste with the consistency of concrete, when I have you.

Lightboxes from Spring 2009.

Overpass: Detail., originally uploaded by Light Pattern Movement.

Time to get around to posting some old stuff, so I can refer to it later. This is a series I did for a class show in the spring of 2009. It explored systems of movement, both macro and micro in scale. I tried to create a dialog through the pieces about these systems: how those that we impose on the outside world, to order and navigate it, mirror those that can be found with in us. I don't know how successful the concept was; by the end I was feeling a bit spread thin, and I got lost in the repetitive action of making them. But it was the jumping off point for how I'm thinking about my work now, and it exposed me to some processes and methods I'm still dealing with. Namely, lighting, transparency, light diffusion, and shadow.

And, if I do say so myself, I ended up with some beautiful objects, if nothing else.

Each box consists of 5 to 9 cut layers of either mylar, or Chartham Satin Vellum. The frames were constructed out of poplar and basswood. I'm still looking for a means to keep the paper ones from warping and bending. I'd really like to avoid pressing them between sheets of (plexi?) glass, because I love the airy feel of the spaced layers... but we'll see.

The rest of the set is up on flickr, here.

Watercolors from Spring 2009

Green Cabbage., originally uploaded by Light Pattern Movement.

For Nature Drawing in Spring 2009 I did a series of watercolors exploring natural patterns and textures. I sought to develop traditional observational skills in wet media. I loved the teacher who taught this course, Lois Hennessey, because of just how honest and non-BS she was; there was no tip-toeing with Lois. This has probably been one of my favorite courses while at MICA. It actually gave me a chance to draw (imagine that while at an art school?) and develop, and really study something through drawing. Towards the end of the course, I found myself really wanting to abstract and build upon some of the patterns I'd been studying, and also to get a bit looser with the brush. So, this semester I'm taking a sumi ink class to pursue that.

The rest are here on flickr.

Hello World! (Or.....finally, its done. )

So, the blog is done (or, at least, it has to be done since I actually intend to start using it). I decided to do an edited version of Minima, rather than build my own. I still learned a bit though through all my not-quite-satisfactory attempts at coding my own template. Alas, this what I ended up with: something thats (hopefully) simple, clean and functional. Still, there's a few more bugs to edit out, of course ;-)

All that said, here's the who, where, and why:

I'm a *slightly* obsessive-compulsive art student (currently a junior fine art major, art history minor, in the midst of a 5 year teaching grad program) with a love of sharp knives, cut paper, and pattern. I draw a bit -- in wet media, more often then not. I attend the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore (or MICA) and generally, when I forget about the 6 hour classes, long crits, and unavoidable all-nighters, I love it. This blog will hopefully function as a means of documenting the rest of my experience here at MICA, getting the work out there to those who otherwise wouldn't see it (friends, family, and the like), and perhaps most importantly, get me a bit more comfortable about discussing my work and its contents.