Two Upcoming Solo Exhibitions

It's been a productive and intense couple of years in the studio and I'm excited to have two shows in September to kick off the fall season. I'm in the middle of compiling the checklists, but roughly, I'll be showing 35 works and 50 studies in two spaces. Insane, you say. I agree.  

I blasted everyone's inbox early because the shows are in Nashville and since most of the fine citizens on my mailing list are not, I couldn't think of a reason to keep it under wraps any longer. I also uploaded the recent work to the website. Major thanks to a group of artists friends for inspiring me with their own work, some virtual & long distance studio visits with discussions about what really matters, and for some disciplined daily practices I've incorporated into my life. Time to wipe down the palette table and pack up the work. I'm looking forward to starting with a clean slate and seeing what's next. Anything is possible.  

If you're able to visit Nashville, or would like to do a studio visit while the shows are up, please let me know and I would be happy to arrange a time to meet. 

image: Faker Than Plastic, 2013, acrylic on canvas, 60 x 48 inches Shell Game Tinney Contemporary August 24 - September 28, 2013 Opening Reception: Saturday September 7th, 6-9 pm Tinney Contemporary 237 5th Avenue North Nashville, TN 37219 ph. 615.255.7816 www.tinneycontemporary.com contact: Sarah Wilson In Shell Game, I revisit my relationship with abstraction by incorporating invented flora, patterns lifted from family heirlooms, and carefully constructed layers that shift slightly in color when viewed from different angles. Before studio hours, I had a meditation practice. During studio hours I listened to mashups. In between, I walked the dog and did housework; saw a movie or read a book; took a motorcycle ride and did some yoga or ran. There were a few storms. Trees went down. On and on.  Gallery Hours: Tuesday through Saturday: 11am - 5pm, and by appt.   ************************ image: Le Rayon Vert (Stańczyk), 2013, oil on canvas, 20 x 16 inches Le Rayon Vert Leu Gallery September 9 - October 17, 2013 Opening Reception: Thursday September 12, 5-7 pm Gallery Talk: Thursday September 12 at 5:30 pm Leu Art Gallery  Belmont University 1900 Belmont Blvd Nashville, TN 37212 Contact: Jessica Owings In Le Rayon Vert, my focus was on the parameters of painting and the ever-shifting construction of meaning, memory, and representation in my day-to-day life. The paintings in Le Rayon Vert are concerned with ideas about temporality and the absurd. My goal was anti-hierarchical and all-encompassing. I varied my approach by working from memory, direct observation, personal photographs and found images.  A green ray is an optical phenomena dependent on atmospheric condition that occurs as the sun sets. It’s the last ray as the sun recedes over the earth’s horizon. Jules Verne used it as a plot device in his book of the same name, and Eric Rohmer used Jules Verne’s book as a plot device in his film, also of the same name. I’ve taken liberty with the narrative structure and characteristics of French New Wave Film and applied them to the recent work. Viewed in this way, the paintings in Le Rayon Vert can be seen as jump cuts about perception.  Kitchen Paintings (#Drifters) As part of the Le Rayon Vert exhibition, I will be showing 50 studies from the Kitchen Paintings (#Drifters).  composite image: Kitchen Paintings (#Drifters), 2013, oil on wood, 6 x 4 x 1/4 inches each.  Last January I set up a cigar box studio in my kitchen and began documenting the wayfaring objects crossing its terrain. I am offering a selection of them available for sale before the show opens, at www.smallerworks.blogspot.com.  I am emphasizing that in red in case you are skimming. I had sworn off painting really small, but I began these as a casual documentation project and sometime during breakfast while working on #23 or so, I decided to make them available to help fund the studio. They are currently available through my studio, and will be for sale during the show at Leu Gallery at Belmont University.   As an acknowledgement of your support, (and patience), you can choose to be listed publicly on the wall tag as a lender to the exhibition. I'm doing this in the spirit of experimentation since the show is at a university gallery. My intention is to divert some attention back to people who support me and to demonstrate the micro-economy in the arts that often goes unnoticed.  Please visit the site in order to purchase, or contact me directly. The studies are oil on hand-cut wood panels and are priced at $200.

Syllabus.

PROJECTS AND ASSIGNMENTS

1. Mark-Making. Students will produce drawings demonstrating the vocabulary of mark-making while simultaneously texting how boring art class is. 
2. Sighting Techniques. Students will produce drawings of still lifes demonstrating basic and advanced sighting techniques that they will pretend to understand but won't. They will insist they understand, and yet, continue to draw the still life as if they are standing directly in front of it.
3. Composition. Students will produce drawings investigating open and closed compositions and not really care one iota about old school compositional strategies. And who can blame them.
4. Contour and Line Sensitivity. Most students will produce drawings of environments and still lifes exploring line quality with emphasis on line variation and modulation to describe volume and mass. A few will insist they need to draw shadows and start smudging their paper with their fingers making it look like total crap. 
5. Value and Volume. Students will draw a still life containing the basic forms (Sphere, Cone, Tube, Cube) beginning with line and finishing with rendering and modeling skills. We will continue to work on this project until everyone runs out of graphite. Students should bring sleeping bags and rations.
6. Perspective. Students will create a one and two point perspective drawing based on the laws of linear perspective. Some will create intricate labyrinths leading to a 4th dimension. Others will feign boredom, a few won't understand. After 15 years of doing this, I will become disoriented when drawing on the blackboard. 
7. Wet Media and Serial Imagery. Students will explore process based wet media techniques and create a series of drawings investigating a single theme. One student will dis abstract art as bullshit. Other than that, we're nearing the end of the semester. I'm giddy.
8. Collaboration and the Grid. Students will work collaboratively to create a drawing enlarged by the accurate use of the grid method. Each student will be responsible for a portion of the drawing. Someone will inevitably have a death in the family. Another will blow it off or leave it at home. There will be a lovely grid hanging on the wall with gaping holes. We contemplate this as metaphor and proceed to question if the universe has meaning.  
9. Final Project demonstrating successful use of skills learned thus far. Students will be responsible for their own still life and spend both class and homework time on this project. One student will insist their project be a direct copy from a photograph and throw a fit when reminded the focus is observational drawing from life. Another will show up to class with nothing. In the end, most everyone pulls off amazing work. I call my bookie to cash in on the bet I placed earlier: Which "A" student will abruptly stop coming to class the last two weeks before school ends? 
10. Sketchbooks. Most students will keep a sketchbook throughout the semester as means of investigating sketching as a serious activity designed to improve their day-to-day drawing skills. Some will advance to demonstrating tattoo designs, their name in various fonts, and a 10-second still life. Others will take a more minimalist approach and turn in a blank sketchbook. All approaches are valid. As a way of expressing solidarity, I will match minimal work with a minimal grade. 

Two more for the weekend.

August is upon us.

Which is just a fancy way of saying, holy crap, I've been painting solid for two shows. And soon they will be over. And I presume there may or may not be something else to come later. I used to get anxious concerned if I didn't have something booked in advance while preparing for the current show, like that was it. Over and done. Time to make peace and call it a good run. Happens with every show. But sometime over the course of the last 10 years, I finally noticed that there was always something next. A phone call, an email, another artist recommendation. It keeps going. I also noticed another sign of growth: if it didn't, I could use the space to take more risks and explore. Occasionally I try and rationalize that I should NOT still be exploring new ideas in my work. That I should jump on the consistency bandwagon and turn pro. I am joking of course. If you know me, you will know which part of that sentence is the funnier part of that joke. Let's go with bandwagon for now.

I've even thought I'd actually welcome a couple of years of without a commitment- nothing but working on transient ideas going nowhere, or perhaps taking the time to work on a couple of large mind-blowingly detailed paintings without knowing the results, but let's not get hasty. Time is weird like that.

I'll be off the grid focusing on nothing most of this weekend, but here's a couple more from the Kitchen Paintings (#Drifters).  Enjoy.

See's vs. Bananas

Reheat

WE ARE LIVE. YES!

There was a small technical issues that prevented the blitzkrieg from taking the Internet by storm, but it's been resolved and persistence does pay off.  Thank you, early supporter!

So far, here's what you've missed:

20. Chemex, Dollar Bill

Not to worry, there are more, but currently, I'm only uploading a small selection during the month of August.

And in case you're just now hip to this, here's the the down-low. Scoot over to Smaller Works presents right now, and read more about it. Or sure, if you're tired and can't stand the thought of clicking a new window open, read about it below. But over there is the only place we can engage in a public act of commerce without having people stare at us like we're some trashy leftovers from the 80's art market.

Kitchen Paintings (#Drifters) will be part of an upcoming solo show, Le Rayon Vert, at Leu Gallery at Belmont University, Nashville, Tennessee. The show runs from September 9 - October 11, 2013.

Beginning THURSDAY August 1st, I will be posting selections from the Kitchen Paintings (#Drifters). I will be offering them for sale before the show is installed.

For being an early supporter, you will be thanked on the wall label with a "Courtesy of Your Name" attribution, and receive free shipping. Paintings will be shipped as soon as the show comes down. 

September 1, 2013 is the last day for credit on the wall label and free shipping. (You can also choose to be an anonymous supporter.)

The Kitchen Paintings (#Drifters) began as a contemplation on simplicity and the passage of time. To date there are 53 paintings.

Approximately 2 hours till launch

 http://smallerworks.blogspot.com 

Book review part one and six degrees of separation.

If I ever teach painting again, I'd recommend Eric Fischl's memoir Bad Boy as a way of introducing how the current discourse on painting and conceptual art evolved.

And then I'd wait for a student to complain that I was making them read a seminal essay about painting.* [Rim shot.]

I'd like to refrain from calling it a split between conceptual art and hands-on art-making because I believe the two can overlap in the right hands, but this is where Fischl's account of his undergraduate and teaching experience puts both of these camps into a better perspective. I can't provide a full review yet, but so far the book not only lays out Fischl's history of finding himself as an artist, but it also provides a lucid account on why academia continues to have a split-personality when it comes to implementing an undergraduate curriculum (and ultimately how that split infiltrates the surrounding community.) For anyone who's had to "defend" painting, even passively, there's a shared sense of camaraderie that's bound to be lost on today's students, some fellow painters and possibly even faculty today. More later, but I'm highly recommending it as a must-read.

As for the six degrees of separation- years ago as young artists just out of school, my friend Margaret and I painted the interior of his ex-wife's house in Chicago. After the job was done, we all shared a moment as one of his paintings was hung back on our newly painted wall.



*true story

MOCA, Post-Deitch.

Christopher Knight's analysis of the MOCA-Deitch affair is concise and to the point.

"Deitch's unfolding artistic program was regularly mischaracterized as celebrity-oriented and blandly populist, thanks to his indulgence in mostly wan exhibitions related to actors Dennis Hopper and James Franco, Hollywood tabloid photographer Weegee, iconic filmmaker Kenneth Anger, pop musician Mike D and, most of all, Andy Warhol and several of the late Pop artist's progeny.

Instead, his program is better described as simply representing a belief that art culture and popular culture have merged, becoming one and the same."

And then there's the little ethical snag of being an avid collector and a museum director, among other mismatches. 

Full article here.

Jeffrey Deitch's background as a gallery owner brought early criticism of his selection three years ago. (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times / January 11, 2010)

Chillaxing with the dark side

I usually try and stave off the postpartum show depression until AFTER the show, but it's always good to be prepared a month or two in advance, so here I sit drumming up worst-case scenarios such as no one showing up at either opening. Which would be a damn shame because in addition to an amazing body of work, I found a variegated dress my mom knit in the 70's that will be perfect to wear. Other variations of angst include thinking I could have worked even more on the paintings, detailing them into infinity, or adding another 20 layers containing shifts of hue so subtle that only the highly perceptive will notice. This is what happens when you have perfectionist issues and work alone. There's always some detail that could be tweaked. Always. And then there's the 'What's next?' issue to contend with. Now what? What's next? Are we there yet? For a process-based painter, I can get pretty wrapped up in anticipating the Next Big Thing. Ironic, no? Not as ironic as the chick texting during meditation practice last night, but close.

Meanwhile, here is a sneak peek of one of the paintings that will be in the show, Shell Game, opening August 24th at Tinney Contemporary with the opening reception on Saturday September 7th. 

Mary Addison Hackett, Spin, 2013

acrylic on canvas over panel

30 x 22 inches

Summer update.

Two solo shows open in less than two months: Le Rayon Vert and Shell Game. 

I'd like to complete 2 more paintings. one each, but I'm also in the middle of documenting, titling and writing. I successfully worked in oil for one show and acrylic for the other without  any serious malfunctions. Only once did I dip my brush into my coffee cup. And only once did I swirl my oil brush in water. I had 2 major spills of fluorescent paint. One led to a new painting, so it worked out. 

I discovered the dog not only herds rocks, but seashells. It was a shocking discovery to see the collection scattered on the floor. They were doing fine on the coffee table. Or at least I thought so. But I'm not a German shepherd border collie mix.

Kitchen Paintings (#Drifters) will be part of Le Rayon Vert. They are small. I'm only about 4 brush sizes and a magnifying glass away from caving in to my desire to be a miniaturist, but I am not there. Yet... 

Small things about to happen....

Drum roll:

I'm getting ready to reopen the Smaller Works blog with riveting new works. You can read more about it over there at 

*Smaller Works presents*

www.smallerworks.blogspot.com

Some days I'm more grateful to make it home than others

People in Tennessee cannot drive. I'll refrain from name-calling.

One of my goals this summer is to:

1. maintain my gold star status from Starbucks.

2. do a sketch each time I get a coffee.

I left the house on my motorcycle wearing a fluorescent orange shirt and a safety vest, and yet- a woman coming from the opposite direction tried to make a left turn in front of me. Fortunately, at the same time I was screaming at the top of my lungs, she stopped and actually made the, you go on motion to me, as if we were at a 4-way stop having a civil no, you go... no, after you mind meld. I was not close to being stopped. I was probably still going 40mph. I had tried to slow down, but, and at this point, it's murky because it was one of those split second things where I simultaneously saw her try to turn in front of me but I also saw her suddenly stopped and already waving. I know it was sudden because her face was near the windshield as though her physical body were making the turn with her car trailing behind. After that, I was paranoid that everyone would be texting or drunk. I continued on my journey but I had second thoughts about taking the 2-lane highway. I made it to my Starbucks destination, had my afternoon Americano, (I'm cutting corners, it's usually a double soy capp) did a sketch, and made it back home. As part of a dedicated practitioner's class, I've been thinking about The Nine Contemplations of Atisha. You could argue that riding a bike raises the odds a bit, but not really. Riding is just another opportunity to practice being present. It's possibly an opportunity to practice not yelling obscenities inside my motorcycle helmet, but that's way down on the list.

And yes, I've leaked a detail of a painting from one of the upcoming shows up there in the background. Surprise.