Thursday, February 25, 2016

Gutskin

Well some success today as another experiment in stretching and drying porcine casing to use as surface medium finally worked!

After a few dozen tries to stretch and dry these over various surfaces, and drying techniques I found that stretching unbleached casing onto the dull side of aluminum foil and drying for 12 hours indoors at room temperature will hold the shape you stretch it in as well as separate from the foil easily enough.

The casing seems to be able to layer, or vary the width, as this piece has at its thickest is 5 layers.

I really like the aesthetic; the different thickness (and therefor varying opaqueness), the vascular appearance, and texture.

From prior experiments it holds acrylic paint sufficiently, so there may be interesting uses for this as a viable surface, as well as addition to other surfaces.


Peeling away the foil



Against white paper


Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Everything is coming along, now I just have to figure out the art part...

With support of the folks at the Cape Fear Studios here in downtown Fayetteville, I have successfully helped to organize and will facilitate a figure drawing class.  This is very advantageous as I have been traveling to figure drawing classes an hour away in Raleigh, and an hour and a half to Durham twice a week, as Fayetteville did not have any class available.

I've been struggling a bit reconsidering my process after the residency, however I do feel I've made progress, even if no actual finished pieces yet. This weekend will be my first meet with my mentor Lavar Monroe, and I look forward to the feedback and conversation that will guide the semester.

While in Washington DC I will be visiting the Smithsonian American Art Museum, stopping by the Renwick Gallery as well as The Phillips Collection.  The Phillips collection has a Postwar Germanic Expressions exhibit Im excited to check out.


                  From The Phillips Collection website:

                                  "With great excitement, The Phillips Collection’s announces the acquisition of 46 gifts of German and Danish art to the museum’s permanent collection, generously given by art collector and dealer Michael Werner. With selections from the gift on view beginning September 12, this extraordinary gift of painting, sculpture, and works on paper showcases the museum’s commitment to building a carefully crafted collection that reflects museum founder Duncan Phillips’s vision and distinctive eye and advances the understanding of 20th-century European art.

In 1963, Michael Werner opened his first gallery in Berlin, with an exhibition of works by Georg Baselitz. Since then, Michael Werner Gallery—now based in Berlin, New York, and London—has worked with a number of the most important artists of the 20th century, including Marcel Broodthaers, James Lee Byars, Peter Doig, Jörg Immendorff, Per Kirkeby, Markus Lüpertz, A. R. Penck, and Sigmar Polke. Michael Werner and Michael Werner Gallery have a long-standing relationship with the Phillips; their collaboration resulted in this generous gift of 46 works by Georg Baselitz, Jörg Immendorff, Per Kirkeby, Markus Lüpertz, and A. R. Penck. All five were part of a generation of postwar artists who breathed new life into figuration, their work characterized by enormous versatility and a constant search to strike balance between abstraction and figuration, form and color."

Wednesday, February 3, 2016

Figure drawing in Raleigh

Well, so far I've found an open figure drawing class in Raleigh which is an hour away. The gallery Artspace is a great space with great folks and artists in residence.

This class was mostly quick gesture and a couple 20 minute poses, I will also attend their Long Pose sessions which start in April, as well as a Figure Painting Workshop in May.

Here are a few from the fun last night: