My installation for "Studio Party 13"

These photos show how I set up my McColl Center studio for the huge "Studio Party" fundraiser last April. This was the first big event of the residency season and all the artists-in-residence were encouraged to decorate their spaces as lavishly as possible. In keeping with the 2013 Studio Party theme "Magical Mystery Tour", we each chose a Beatles song to work with. Mine was "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", which I translated into building a rather large "tangerine tree" in one corner (complete with a day-glo painting of a floating eyeball on black velvet) and lots of pink and fuchsia - marmalade walls. It was pretty intense color-wise, everything had sort of a rosy glow under the spotlights, and I was happy that it all felt very trippy without being too visually obnoxious.

I hung the long wall salon-style with a broad collection of older work from the past decade or so of my studio practice. As a interesting side note, this temporary installation gave me the opportunity to sit back and look at a rather eclectic bunch of drawings, sketches, prints, and other odds and sods that normally live in storage, and see the commonalities and deviations among them. The whole thing was a nice exercise in personal critique, to look back over the past decade of studio production and just swim around in the various visual themes and formal tendencies that keep popping up seemingly subconsciously, again and again and again...

The ever changing studio walls...

As I was emptying out my camera today, I found some photos of earlier studio set-ups from the start of my McColl Center residency, and I realized I had not yet posted images of other studio installations on the blog. So here are the previous two iterations of painted walls and display Studio 219 has gone through so far since April. 

Below are some pics of the May-June installation in my studio space, which focused on life drawing and a couple of larger figurative works. I filled the long wall with life drawings from the past five years or so; all are either simple graphite or charcoal on paper sketches, and the average size is a standard 18" X 24"sheet. Most of these are from longer pose drawings, taking on average between 45 minutes to an hour to complete.

On the shorter, greener wall are two pieces from the "Corsage" series I was working on in 2009 -2010. Each of these started as a large, long session life drawing (about three hours with one model in one pose...) and were then embellished and manipulated with acrylic washes, adhesive vinyl, ink, and last but not least, lots and lots of artificial flowers, sewn directly on to the drawing surface. Also of note, the "Corsage" series drawings are not on paper, they are on Yupo, a synthetic plastic-like watercolor paper that has since become a studio staple.

"The Physician's Assistant"

And here is another newly completed piece. The found object that generated this visual "conversation" is the pair of rusted scissors, attached to the right side of the composition.

"The Dauphin"

So now, at four months into my residency here at the McColl Center, I finally have new work to share! This and the following post show two recently completed works that I am really happy with.

A few new things to note about this work:

• The found objects I use, which are stitched directly to the surface of the drawings, are becoming much more integrated into the overall surface design. In fact, they even seem to disappear into clusters of shapes and colors when I look the piece here on my blog. Here's a challenge blog viewers: This drawing has three found objects attached to the surface, can you find them?

• Letters and text are making a strong comeback in my work after a hiatus that lasted about two years. I am now scribbling and scrawling bits of thought on the page as part of my initial sketch process when I lay out a composition. A lot of this writing gets buried under subsequent layers of acrylic wash and colored pencil drawing, but now I am allowing more of it to resurface and influence how I develop and think about the final piece.

• I am feeling good about the way all the elements, both formal (color, shape, texture...) and conceptual (the heads derived from portrait busts, the stream of consciousness writing, the found objects...) integrate in this new work. It feels like these different components are in conversation with each other in a much more successful way than in the past: nothing is too jarring, but it also maintains the ruptured aesthetic of collage. The final work doesn't fall into an overdetermined, uniform sameness. I like that these pieces also show the marks of their own making, that they are complete without being over polished or surface obsessive, which is a trap that I often fall into...

More of the Really Big Thing

Well, the Really Big Thing has been growing, or at least changing, into something that is... still kind of an undefinable really big thing. But now at least there is color, texture, shiny fabric, and a few found objects that have joined the chorus. 

What you're looking at is the same drawing with a coating of gesso wash over the whole surface that pushed down the heavy graphite line work into a ghost drawing, while leaving the surface a little toothy and ready for more graphite drawing on top. Then came some acrylic washes in color, first the red with all the drips and creeping, crawling dribble marks, then the spectrum of greens and blues around the central figure.

I also folded the surface of the drawing, so that it would have crease marks running through it like an old map that has been sitting in the back of the station wagon for the past 30 years.
I cut out the arch-like formation in the lower right hand of the composition and sewed in some super shiny, seemingly blood-stained fabric behind it. The fabric is currently flowing down to the floor beneath the piece, making a kind of billowing skirt to display several found objects from the studio. Will they stay or go?? Who knows, this monster is still very undefinable and in progress / process...

Stay tuned for more alterations to the "Really Big Thing" in the weeks and months to come. I am committed to documenting most of the major alterations to the piece as it develops, and having some fun with Photoshop along the way!! (Maybe the whole thing will end up blue in the end...)

Big Untitled Thing! (in progress)

So here is a really big thing that I started last week in my studio.

I refer to it as a "really big thing" (rather than just a large drawing or a new piece...) because it is indeed quite large and indeed quite "thing-like", in that I really have no idea where it is going yet. This "thing" originated from a desire to burn through some old materials; I had the final remnants of a large roll of heavy drawing paper and I knew that I wanted to use it immediately. I also had some vague imagery ideas about swamp tress and heads hanging off tree limbs like heavy fruit, which needed to get out of my peripheral imagination and onto a page somewhere. 

The following photos show the first pass at playing with these materials and ideas. The entire paper measures about 4' X 8', and the drawing is all just in graphite of various strengths and qualities (8B, 6B, and 4B pencils, graphite crayons, etc.)

Look for more updates soon as to what the really big thing morphs into. I am secretly hoping that in the dark of night it grows a few extra limbs, crawls away into the local sewer system, and starts a new life as Charlotte's local version of Phantom of the Opera...

"Jester for the Surrender"

"Jester for the Flood"

"Jester for the Revolution"

Here are a few detail shots of the "Jesters" series:

New studio, new work: "Jesters"

This little series of three new mixed media pieces are among the first things I have started and completed here at the McColl Center. As is my standard practice, I have many different projects (of all shapes, sizes, and materials) going on in my studio at once. On any given day I will bounce from project to project, which really fits my creative work method, but can prove problematic when it comes to finishing actual art objects. So to solve this problem I have put myself on something of a schedule, with a general goal of completing at least 3 to 5 new things each month. I decided to start small and experimental, and came up with these "Jesters" for the month of June. Each is mixed media on watercolor paper (acrylic wash, ink, graphite and colored pencil) stitched into a handmade cardboard and found object frame.

The name "Jesters" was suggested by my friend and fellow McColl Center artist-in-residence Natalie Abrams, when she and several other artists were visiting my studio for a critique a couple of weeks ago. The name captures the squiggling, dancing quality I wanted these abstracted forms to have while floating in their somewhat medieval looking frames.

As with most of my drawings, these all started from a place of observation and study. Here is the striped cloth object that I sewed together to use as a "model" for the series:

Clive Owen sees all, knows all...

So next to the Jungian Laundromat, by the parking area beside the Innovation Institute (another part of the McColl Center, more on this later...) is a billboard set facing the nearby highway, 277, which makes a kind of beltway around uptown Charlotte. And staring down from this billboard is none other than the painfully handsome British actor Clive Owen, enjoying a glass of high quality vodka.

Again, coincidence?? I think not. You don't put a billboard of Clive Owen up next to the Jungian Laundromat, clearly visible from my studio window, without making an inevitable series of cognitive associations.



I will put this forward to my blog audience (whoever you are out there...) Look deep into Clive's eyes and help me decipher: Does he acknowledge me, and, more importantly, what is his message for the mere mortals who pass daily under his steady gaze??

The Jungian Laundromat (next door)

So one of the daily delights of working at the McColl Center studios is being part of an urban environment again. Granted, Charlotte NC is no Tokyo, but it is a city of about a million people in the greater metropolitan area, and it has an eclectic mix of people and ideas floating around that make for rich stimulus. Take for example, a local small business located next to the main studio building, Jung's Laundry and Cleaning Service. I park beside it every day and I can actually see the awesome old-school neon sign light up every night out my studio windows. 

It occurred to me after about my first week working in my studio that I was toiling under the watchful eye of the Jungian Laundromat, either a memorial to the great psychotherapist and psychologist, Carl Gustav Jung, or possibly a side business that he himself started in late retirement. 

It simply seems too much of a coincidence that this confluence of associations should be right out my studio window, lighting up (literally) like a neon sign every time the sun goes down. Clearly, this is a sign that I need to delve deeper into universal archetypes and  the collective unconscious in my work...

And honestly, what's not to love about this busted, ancient shirt sign with flashing bulbs on the side of the building!

Back up and running...

So for those who may be paying any attention at all, you will have noticed (as did I today, and much to my chagrin) that the last time I posted anything to this blog was at the end of January 2013. This lapse in attention has been due to the steady accumulation of numerous real world events. To be brief, I was so busy this past spring there was no time to generate any new content for "Drawings Are Ideas...", much less clear the mental space for attending to blog posting. It was kind of a crazy time.

And the reasons for this are many: I relocated my studio and my home, shifted away from my last teaching job, and generally upended most of the day to day normalities that one may call a life.

But now I am back in the swing of things (art-wise and life-wise), on board with a fantastic new studio set up and a reinvigorated studio practice. And there's lots of new art work to show.

To start, let me share my utterly awesome new studio space. At the beginning of April 2013 I started a year long residency at the McColl Center for Visual Art in Charlotte, North Carolina. The McColl Center is an urban artist residency program, located right on the edge of busy uptown Charlotte in a refurbished 1920's, neo-Gothic church. The church was heavily damaged by fire in 1984, and renovated in 1995. For the full story about the building, just follow this link:

http://www.mccollcenter.org/about/history

And to get more information about the McColl Center, how the residency program works and all the other artists-in-residence, programs, and exhibitions that are a part of this fantastic cultural institution, check out their website:

http://www.mccollcenter.org/

So with that said, I am happily inhabiting Studio 219 on the second floor of the McColl Center until the end of March 2014. Here is a snapshot tour of the space:

As you walk into the studio, I have two large walls for displaying completed work on the immediate left and a long working wall for works-in-progress on the right.

I have lots of flat file space and two large working tables, both on wheels, so I can move them around, or out of the way as needed.

The studio is an L-shaped floor plan, and as you round the corner I have a smaller space set up with a couch and an old wooden cupboard I use to store all the found objects I use in my work (I like to think of this as a personal "Cabinet of Curiosities").

And finally, here is a look at some of the finished work I have hanging at the moment. The McColl Center has excellent gallery space throughout the hallways of their rather labyrinthine building, and I always have completed work on display there, along with all the other current artists-in-residence. I am also using a couple of walls in my studio to show completed work. This is a great way to get a feeling for how larger pieces and larger series look installed and under gallery lighting. I've decided to change up the display in my studio every month or so of my residency, to coincide with other McColl Center main gallery openings and events.