Wednesday, September 16, 2015

Rawhiiiiide!

After the first mentor meeting and looking at artist Gregory Gillespie, I committed myself to working from life more and building the surface of my paintings more by layering the acrylic using spit-shading.  For convenience I grabbed my son as model. Obviously because he is easy access, but also because I wasn't embarrassed to stare at his cheek up close for awhile. He, on the other hand, thought this was annoyingly weird.



Vincent

I also painted a background, using a geometric composition. I enjoy juxtaposing the patterns of his clothes with that of the geometric background. As well as the patterns on the pillows. Then the representation of tattoo flash to the right of subject.  I like the idea that tattooed people are 'patterned skin'. 

This presented an epiphanic moment to me. A visual theme I want to include and consider will be patterns. How visual patterns direct/affect the viewer.


Along with experimenting with the visual effects of spit-shaded liquid acrylic, I've been trying to tie in the actual process of tattoo in my work.

I've considered painting on other materials as well as unconventional material such as the porcine casings. Although I have gotten some satisfying effects of drying porcine on paper, to actually spit-shade on it did not produce the desired smoothness that the technique enables on paper. Spit-shading is very specific to its materials, from the paper to the brushes to the liquid acrylics used. It takes awhile to' work in' a brush. And I then primarily stick to four main brushes, until the absolute need to replace, which is met with grief. Maybe its how the spit break-in the brush, maybe its my OCD, either way its specifics such as this that define my process. Interestingly this is also true to some tattooer (myself included). The way in which I would prepare my tools etc for a tattoo was very specific,  ritualistic. This ritual was essential.

So I am continuing on the same watercolor paper, as well as figuring out how I want to interpret tattoo. While on a search for actual parchment I was directed to a leather shop. Considering the option of possibly painting leather, I also was introduced to large rawhide sheets. When soaked the rawhide becomes malleable. I bought some leather and rawhide.

Conceptually working in these materials is great, being that they are both skins of animals. I asked the very friendly leather salesman in he ever heard of tattooed rawhide, to which he said if he could figure out how to do it he would make a bunch o money. he said unfortunately the rawhide will 'blow out the ink and not hold the line'.......  malleable


Dry rawhide


After soaking the rawhide, it is in fact maleable. After different attempts and changing needles and messing with the tattoo machine as well as doctoring the ink a bit, I was able to tattoo a design on a piece of rawhide. There are similarities with tattooing skin and rawhide, but the guy was right, its hard to make a clean line without it blowing out. But it is possible, as I figured out. Even with imperfect line there is mark making happening, and this with suffice in how I will represent tattoo in my work. I am pleased that the actual process of tattoo is still used...the way in which i present the two visual pieces together will be through collage. 

What I tattoo and how the tattooed rawhide I use in the painting will work on different levels, both visually and conceptually.



Tattooed rawhide segment




The picture above shows the successful segment of tattooed rawhide. I experimented with forming the piece into an arm-like shape, and then letting that dry and harden. There is possibility of trying 3-D pieces with this possibly in future.  
The lines and shading are imperfect, as rawhide differs from living skin. I actually like this idea as well. Nevertheless, as stated before, there is mark making. Even if some lines spread into the veins of the rawhide, I like the possibilities with that as well. 


Self-portrait

The above is the first attempt of incorporating everything I've been working on thus far.  The bodice thing is the tattooed rawhide, of which a tessellation pattern was tattooed. The rawhide then dried and adhered to the painting, which was done on watercolor paper, which was cut out and adhered to a photograph , which is adhered to a pre-fab board. The rawhide also adds physical dimension, as it is about a centimeter thick. This allows for pieces to be cut out, like the center circle with a traditional tattooed rose inside it.  With this centimeter thick boarder around the rose I was able to fill that with resin. The outcome makes rose look more ornamental,  an aspect of the painting that is given a kind of 'sacred housing'.

I intend to do more along these lines. Pushing my technique both of spit-shading and tattooing rawhide. Hopefully joining them in compositionally interesting collages.


Sunday, September 6, 2015

Update, and the first mentor meeting...

 After the post-residency brain scramble and strange experimentation I embarked on thereafter I had returned a bit more to painting, although subject matter was beginning to transform. Maybe in my experiments with the innards of pigs, I'm not sure, but I began to enjoy making these kind of '2D taxidermy' people-animal beings. Initially I was going to paint on paper, then adhere to pre-fab board and after applying few coats of medium, then wrap the board, and painting with the pig casing.


Nope

So this was the first painting I was planning on wrapping in casing. It was a total fail,as well as it didn't incorporate human parts, although i was thinking of adding a hand. Regardless I wasn't happy so I ditched it. I do however like the hair.




This I was happier with. The awkward synthesis of human/tiger was intentional, although I'm not sure it looks that way. New discoveries were made as far as the possibilities of spit-shading. worked more into it and I'm happy with the result, especially the hair on the tiger part.

This I attempted to wrap in casing. After coating it 3 times with matte medium, I began to lay the casing as I had on the previous boxes.


******* Since I had realized while making previous boxes of the salmonella threat, I also used casings that were pre-soaked in bleach and anti-bacterial soap.*********

After laying a few over the painting.....the paint started to separate and bleed. At this point I liked this painting, so I pulled casings off and was able to save it.  I may need to soak the bleach more out of the casing, and put more coats of finish on the painting, however I took a break from it at this point: FAIL, more or less.

I decided to paint a more involved composition of taxiderm-ied people, so I started this:




After the ddddrrrrraaaawwwwwiiiinnnngggg exhibit I saw in Raleigh At the Contemporary Art Museum and looking at works of Amy Cutler and Marcel Dzama, as well as others in Vitamin D: New Perspectives in Drawing, I began to think I was possibly akin to drawing more than painting, as I presented in my 'Residence Summary', as well as the reasons why.  I thought that is where spit-shading could situate, especially since like drawing, spit-shading is a pre-production technique, leading to tattoo.
I went to the first mentor meeting with Gary Bolding with this in mind. I felt I had a little more direction than where my brain was right after residency, but still something felt a bit unresolved.
One of the reasons I wanted a mentorship with Gary was because of his masterful technique as a figurative oil painter as well as the sometimes odd subjects he paints.

The meeting was completely helpful. I went away from it with a more tangible plan of what I need to work on for the first semester (the nit and grit of the work). We discussed the investigation of skin and obsessiveness the artist has with it and how that can relate conceptually to tattooing.  He pointed out my technical shortcomings even considering the fantastical absurdity of some figures. He mentioned early works of Lucien Freud and more-so the work of Gregory Gillespie.  As well as his contemporary William Beckman.

 Of the pieces I had brought to the residency, he concentrated on one I had completely hated post residency. 


When I showed this at residency it had had a sheet of frosted plexiglass suspended over it which obscured the painting.  When I showed it to Gary, it was like this, no plexiglass.  He pointed out the successes with skin texture, as well as failures of anatomy (eyes, nose). 

Gary also confirmed I was a painter, that what I was doing with spit-shading qualified. This was important to hear as I had considered the possibility I was more making marks closer to what artists in drawing movements are doing.  This redirected my association to my work, which was reiterated after looking at Gregory Gillespie's work. Maybe spit-shading is neither, both ....I'm not sure it matters to label it, but as I develop the technique more it helps to understand it in a way that will help direct how I work. 

Gregory Gillespie:

Self-Portrait On Bed
1973-1974
Oil and Magna on Wood

Self-Portrait with Beads and Charkras
1987-1988
Oil and Alkyd on Panel

Self-Portrait (Torso)
1975
Oil and Acrylic on Wood Panel

Self-Portrait with Banana
2000
Oil on Wood over Photograph





We also discussed my lack of composition in a lot of my painting. He suggested looking at Philip Pearlstein, as well as Degas, Vermeer.

Thursday, July 23, 2015

Hey Raleigh is A-OK!!!!

Yesterday I got to visit Raleigh agian, and again, had a great time. Went to the Contemporary Art Museum, CAM, where I thankfully landed in on the DDDRRRAAAAAWWWWWWIIINNNGGGG exhibition.  As I'm beginning to see my work as more akin to drawing than painting, this show was so very good to see.











Thursday, July 16, 2015

"Chaos for me breeds images." - Francis Bacon

My nest

This morning I did some reflecting.  During my critiques it was suggested more than once to introduce more ambiguity in my work, be more suggestive and make the viewer work more. And by incorporating this I need to find a voice that will present the themes I explore but, I suppose, not so in-your-face. Not so literally. I completely appreciated this cog in my wheel. Before the residency I was, and have always felt I needed to 'toe the line', I thought I needed to push that limit to be heard. I thought I didn't know any other way, the emergency I've felt and the 'need' to operate at extremes was my niche, the way I was presented to the world and the answer I gave to the world. My work was loud in undergrad, I was mad at the world and I had to express it. Then upon graduating, and joining the army, September 11, 2001 occurred. From that point on, the extremes have been even more polarized, as my husband and friends have been deployed multiple times in a seemingly unending war. Meanwhile the times at home have been as contentious as times deployed. We have not been able to catch our breath.  And this has been reality for me as I grow and raise a family, and live through my twenties, thirties.
My work as an undergrad, or work at all, seemed naive in those early years when I was in the Army. I couldn't find it, couldn't grab onto something tangible that made sense, and maybe I wasn't ready to search it out. Then the opportunity of tattoo came along and I threw myself at it. That was an art to me that was as aggressive and courageous as the soldiers around me. Someone told me once it took 'balls to tattoo'. That art made sense then. Also, the ability to do memorial tattoos on soldiers, and how the history of tattoo coincides so with military life all helped me find was my station in the life I lived.  However, I was really just building an armor. As well as linking my artistic validity to mastering a craft, that I hid behind.
I knew going into an MFA would be an arduous task for me, but not just because I'm attempting to bridge my work as a tattooer with a finer art discipline, but also because this armor I have built needs to be investigated.  The experience of the first residency shed light on my own folly.  I came with my guards in place, not consciously but only because they have been there for so long.  My assumed resiliency was stripped away to reveal my contradictions.  I am not, in fact, 'tougher than the world', (in reference to the 'suck it up' mentality of military life), the current state of [everything] does piss me off and I do feel that, and it does break my heart.  I felt as if my tattoos had suddenly fallen off and I was there naked, with no assigned prescription to shield my exposure. And I am grateful for that.
Of course now, back in 'my nest' I can digest everything. And I still feel an urgency, but also aware of redirecting my approach in a way that may be heard more so than my work so far.  I was re-listening to Stuart Steck's lecture this morning for critical theory, discussing Baudelaire's 'Painter of Modern Life' , how the job of the modern painter is to paint life.  And I wonder if Manet racked his brain to figure out a way to paint that was so oppositional to academy painting as to express the changing world around him (or for that matter how any artist from Modernity on figured it out).
Stuart nailed it with the statement:
            "Don't worry about these concerns that have preoccupied art, put those away, and go find the concerns that should be important to us today, and find the adequate means of representing those concerns."
So now I have to find my way, my voice, to represent the world as I know it. I believe this semester will be mostly my search for this, and I am sure (and ok with) the many failures that will ensue, as long as I know it will get me closer to some realization, and the ability to address the truth, without armor.


Wednesday, July 15, 2015

"The artist lives in an atmosphere of perpetual failure." -Harry Crews


fig. 1
fig. 2
fig. 3
fig. 4
fig. 5


























So let's talk about guts and art. Art and guts. Artguts. From the first drying attempt of the casings I only yielded that much (fig.1). For the most part the casing dried INTO the canvas, of which I hadn't intended to use in the art piece, but was using to dry the casings on. I had initially wanted to be able to use the casings independently of any other surface. After that fail, I rethought the approach as to actually pasting them on the surface I chose for the art piece. So initiated round two. I readied a panel box with desired watercolor paper and wrapped the front and sides completely with casing. The cool thing about casing is that it thins out as you pull and 'mush' it into place. 

***It's hilarious to me that I am discovering how to manipulate intestine for a desired visual effect, please don't send the paddywagon and the nice men in the white coats just yet!!!***

I was very happy with the end product (fig.2) and quickly showed all my friends on facebook.  Then as the sun started to fade from my windows and I heard the telltale rumble of a southern summer afternoon shitstorm, I realized (as I looked down at the damn WARNING labels on the casings container, something about cooking them correctly to prevent bacterial infection blah blah)......that I couldn't exactly paint on this salmonella box using THE method of painting that I do. The act of  'spit-shading' involves putting the brush that was just on the paper in your mouth. 

Spit-shade: a two brush painting technique used by tattooers to blend the black, greys and color of watercolor or liquid acrylic to produce highly desired smooth transitions. Literally placing one brush in your mouth to absorb saliva and using that spit brush to draw out pigment applied with other brush. 

I'm not a mathematician, but I don't think spit-shading on a potentially health hazardous painting surface adds up.  DUHHH, shit. 

sal·mo·nel·la

ˌsalməˈnelə/
noun
  1. a bacterium that occurs mainly in the intestine, especially a serotype causing food poisoning.



.....'occurs mainly in the INTESTINE'..... Tra la la, whatevs.  But in the interest of preserving life, I decided my next issue was eradicating bacteria. So, maybe cooking it would do the trick ? (and this is where reality really
starts to blur) 'I'll just throw it in the oven for 5 mins!' Well I did, and before it burst into flames I grabbed it out, but the casing had already popped and curled off the edges (fig.3, 4). FAIL.

Um so toss the idea all together right? It was DOA, engine seized, a pulled hamstring, the Griswalds Christmas turkey....

Well, no! What fun is that? You gotta be tough when you're stupid, so back to the drawing board....

This time I mixed a solution of bleach and anti-bacterial soap and pre-soaked the casing. then washed. Did this a few times, rewrapped the now cooled board and dried it. The washed casings have a finer texture, and are even easier to meld to form (hell yes). The dried surface pulls a good line as it turns out, shading is different, but interesting. Also the ability to layer casings, as they are translucent, after painting gives really cool effect, as well as the ability to tear into it. Figure 5 is the box after messing around quite a bit with it. I will leave this as the experimental piece probably. There's some interesting things going on and it does very much give off a 'living' vibe. Today I have started another piece. I didn't get sick from that day so I think I'm good. Right?  



"It's not tragic to die doing what you love."    
                                   
         -words of the late great Patrick Swayze in Point Blank



Monday, July 13, 2015

It's surprisingly difficult to figure out how to paint on guts....

In the interest of branching out on what medium I paint on it was suggested I try a more living substance that would mimic the idea of living skin, a la tattooing. Parchment and velum are totally viable and very interesting options. And I am ordering them, but a perhaps more hardcore option was presented....a grosser, smellier, messier, less conventional, kind of crazy option. (Uh, yeah duh I want that one!).  So it has come about that I am attempting to cut, stretch, and dry porcine casings to paint on them.  I bought the casings while still in Florida visiting my parents. I dutifully went to work on their patio, cutting and stretching the casing out on an old canvas. It wasn't so much stretching as it was just smoothing them out on the canvas, and they would just stick there.  And yes it was smooshy, and stunk, Lawddddd!!!
How they come. yummmmm
Cutting





How it adhered to canvas
So that was that, so far. About an hour later my Mom came home to find this masterpiece drying on her patio.  Evidently a pig gut painting is not on my Mom's Christmas list. It was not well received. Something about 'river rats' being attracted to them (she lives between the river and the ocean). Even worse was the explanation I attempted to give, defending the right and relevance to work with pig poop shooters.......giving examples of other artists that used kinda gross non-conventional media, Chris Ofili and elephant dung etc ('and Mom He's awesome!').  Eventually I just apologized, because honestly she has a great point, what the hell am I doing fucking around with pig intestine?  But what the hell was I doing putting permanent marks on skin? And for that matter , what the hell am I doing painting anyway? 

Sunday, July 12, 2015

Start...

I used to, for more than half of my life, use these little hardbound handy-sized sketch journals to record, collect, react to, rant about, shit-on, or love life as I lived it. I would take them with me everywhere (still do sometimes). I'd throw in antidotes, sketches or whatever I saw fit that I knew would come in handy to reflect upon when the time for making was nigh. They became an important part of the whole process for me. They are quite beat up and stuffed with a mish mash of the crap I guess was too much to leave in my head, or too important to trust with memory. They have been on road trips, they have been in cafes and bars, always carried with me, even through basic training, being desperately hid from drill sergeants.   I used to think, if there were a fire, I'd grab those first. Now of course its the kids, and the dog, cat.  They would burn I'm sure.

So now I'm using this as my new journal I suppose. I will however miss the smell and feel of the pages and how the ink scratched into the paper, how sometimes friends or acquaintances would scribble something in their margins, how the bindings would sometimes overwhelm and break, how their tattered and worn pages made them beautiful, lived in...