other artist?

Hi all,

Can we invite other artist friends/community to view and post on our site yet?

claudia

postcard people!

there seem to be two good ideas for our collaboration put out on the blog so far:

1)something where we involve other artists we know outside of CSULB
2)Claudia's friend's MFA class

we could do both, either or something different, but we i think should decide...shall we figure it out on the blog or meet in person? (i'll be in LB a fair amount this week or we could meet before class next Tues)

i personally prefer working with the MFA class (or starting up both) because I don't have much of a network of artist friends, though I guess it could be an opportunity for me to reach out to acquaintances and folks I haven't kept in touch with... :-)

mw

Possible Collaboration

A friend of mine works with low income youth in long beach and put this out to me:    

First, I am putting together a collaboration between long beach artists and my class.  Each artist will be matched up with a different student and create a piece of art based on a social issue.  One artist Michael Pukac, has already come in and others from fullerton are scheduled.  In total I have five artists but need 8-10 more.  I was about to put an ad up on craigs list but csulb would be better.  We will be working with DDR Project Gallery on a show at the end of may or beginning of June.  If we dont use the space there, the owner of the gallery is going to get us into a Phantom Gallery somewhere in down town long beach.  The work will be auctioned and some of the proceeds will go to a non-profit organization.  This is a part of my student service learning project so they understand that this is for a good purpose.  We are looking for the artist to come in one day per week no more than one hour per day.  Each child will work on the art while the artist is away.  The artist should return until the project is finished.  So far i have 4 painters and one fashion designer.  I'm really excited about the project.  We are planning a full opening.  

Lorianne 

loriannseven@yahoo.com

Earlier today I sent out an email to many of my artist friends outside of CSULB.  I did this with the intention to collect postcards so that we may do something with them soon.  One friend replied with an interesting proposition.  Apparently, she too is in a painting seminar class that needs to be in a collaboration this semester.  Her name is Linda and she is a ceramic major at Colorado State University at Boulder.  Doesn't it sound like a great group to invite into our glob?  Or to perhaps develop a collaboration with.  Anyway, below you will see what I sent and what her reply was.  I thought I would put it out there for you all to consider as well.  

__________message from Linda at Colorado State University @Boulder (grad student in ceramic sculpture)

Hey Claudia,

Yes, this is perfect, we have to participate in a collaboration for our painting seminar!  So, I think I can get three of us grads to send y'all some work.  A few questions:

1.  so, are we making postcards?  2-d only?  or can it be 3-d?

2.  what happens after we send the work?

3.  what is the collaborative aspect?

4.  if we request work, what do we do with it?

ok, we are in!  Linda

__________

original message sent:

Hey,

I am working on a collaboration with my studio mates at CSULB.  We are looking to interact with other artists in an attempt to break out of our circle of influence.  Do you have a small piece you could contribute to this collaboration?  The only parameter is the size, it must be a postcard size piece that is made by hand, mailed to me within the next two weeks:

for those of you that are on campus, you can also choose to put one or more in my box.  And if you would like to be mailed a postcard in exchange, please include your mailing address and a stamp.

Claudia

Eric Fischl light coming through the blinds paintings

this is in response to an old post i think by Catherine, about light coming in through the blinds. It made me think of some of Eric Fischl's paintings... I would have commented on that post but I wanted to attach pictures.

Jordan

Polke's Collected Works

Nate and Catherine,

this is called "Polke's collected works" by Sigmar Polke. Laquer on burlap. 15 3/4" x 59" from 1969. It is a painting of a standardized book collection, like one might see at any other person's home. I think it plays with the idea of illusionism, both in painting and in terms of the outward appearance of our book collections giving the illusion of some social or intellectual status. Mark Twain said "A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read." In doing my job assisting a designer, i.e. going into wealthier people's homes, I am always struck by the vast collections of untouched somewhat repulsive editions of book kits that adorn their bookshelves, the types that are all approximately the same burnt orange color, that still look so new that you know they've never been read. no use, no character to them. Unlike some tattered first edition book that you can find at a used book store, that is purchased individually. Getting back to Polke, I think there is a humorous pop sentiment to this piece, as well as his other works. Anyway, Nate this image came to mind in relation to your discussion of bookcases as monikers for intellect.

JC

talking bookcases

Bookcase project:

So I have been thinking about what a bookcase represents. What does it hold? How is the information categorized, displayed, lost, or buried. I wonder how much of my bookcase is about a representation of who I am, or just what I currently have shuffling around my life. I've even been guilty of putting my most respectable books in prominent places to show others, or remind myself of an aptitude for learning, or knowledge I've processed. Could a bookcase be a trophy case for knowledge aquired?

I'm proposing the idea of an exchange of information between bookcases. It could be in a physical sense, or ideas. Can the physical presence of three bookcases invade one another? Would we actually build connections between them? or simply sabatage the logic of the others? Perhaps we can each build, alter, arrange our individual shelves and then see what happens when they collide.

NH

postcards and planning

1) hey Post Card Group--what do you want to do? Maybe we can talk at the beginning of class tomorrow night for a second...I can think of a few ideas so far: -we send drawing/art on postcards to people -we get people to send art on postcards to us -we leave postcards around town to be sent back to us -we get some class of kids somewhere to send postcards to other kids somewhere totally different -we do the same as the last but with some kind of group of adults -we ask people for things like memories or answers to an odd question or drawing from memory or maybe a text that they know by heart--like the pledge of allegiance, the lord's prayer, hamlet, etc--or who knows what....final idea, some kind of mosaic/collage that gets split up between a bunch of postcards and then someone has to assemble it.

2)on Planning
so i've been thinking more about planning and painting versus a more intuitive, grope around in the dark approach and here's what i have so far from my friend photoshop and some photos of the (not sure here about the stats) 6th largest city in the world

Anger and Art

I had an interesting situation where in interacting with some particular works i became irritated and almost angry. Initially I aimed the blame at the art and then the artist and then even the audience around me. I felt Angry and now here I am contemplating further what nuances set me off. If I was complacent i would not be thinking about this any further. Anger is sometimes a taboo emotion.. at least in my upbringing. I am a notorious hothead within my family. 

But I was taught a few years ago that Anger is a very strong energy and if respected it fuels the burner of the creative process. I usually fail gloriously. But I do notice that after emotions well i am quite productive at some aspect of my process. Yesterday I stretched a large canvas and gesseod it in 30 minutes flat.  Wham Bam thank You Ma'am. 

But Mostly I'm curious how you feel a strong emotion like anger or others have propelled your work or how you integrate/ abstain the reality of your emotions in your process. If at all?

Xtina

Ps. Charlie Alpha Tango- Our Shared Yoga moves was way fun last night... Thanks

TV and Art

So I'm curious what, as painters our position is to television, and to mainstream forms of entertainment. Recently I have been watching more, though I was averse to it. It seems the artists that I know are very divided on this- some seem to enjoy their particular shows, others make it a point not to have one around. I remember Rauschanberg saying something along the lines of he felt sorry for people who didn't like things- every day, consumable things, and he had a tv in his studio and it was on all the time. I guess this relates to the mass media/ pop art, versus a maybe more hierarchical separation between 'painting' and 'life' , a more sanctified or sanctimonious view of painting. I suppose there are room for both in our lives- tv and art...

another good blog

i was just doing some research for mark ruwedel's class- i have to present allan mccollum next week- and i came accross this blog

http://jaredlindsayclark.blogspot.com/

very very cool stuff. also good reference to see how collaborative work is presented in blog form.

Orders

Attn: Xray Tango India November Alpha:

Your orders (please):

I'm interested in the ways we ritualize time. Does Grace have any toys that relate to this? How do you teach her about telling time, minutes, hours, years, etc? Do you remember anything from when you were little? Any of you guys: Can you remember any toys that taught you about time?



-Charlie Alpha Tango

john dewey

i thought this quote from the American philosopher made a lot of sense in the context of our blog:

"...the backbone and indeed the life-blood of my aesthetic theory (such as it is) is that normally complete experience, every one that runs its own full course, is aesthetic in its consummatory phase; and...my theory holds also that the arts and their aesthetic experience are intentionally cultivated developments of this primary phase..."

quoted in Philip Zeltner, John Dewey's Aesthetic Philosophy, Gruner, Amsterdam: 1975.

here i don't think he means that every experience we have is aesthetic, but that every experience has the potential to be aesthetic if it is properly structured or complete, and that fine art is an "intentional cultivation" of this kind of experience.

mw

Photos of Photos

For so long my work focused on my experience in coming to the united states and on becoming american.  I thought that I had exhausted all of my imagery and experience and yet, today I can look again and feel that I have only scratched the surface of what it has meant for me.  I have been sitting and going through old journals, paintings and photos ...here are a few I found today.   The top photo is of my cousins and myself at a local beach and the other is of me on the day of the virgin of guadalupe, where children dress as peasants and bring pointsettias to the the virgin.  They are some of last photos that we took before fleeing el salvador.

Radical Doubting

People vary in their capacity for accepting doubt, especially of cherished beliefs, and they also vary in how much of themselves they are willing to doubt.  The belief that our experience, our education, our status and our upbringing are proofs and guarantees is vanity.  Although never easy, it seems clear that erasing some aspect of attributes-of-self is necessary.  In "Fear and Trembling,"  Kierkegaard quotes Luke 14:26:  "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters-yes, even his own life-he cannot be my disciple"

What does one trust?  I have considered this question for a long time but neither the question nor its implications have become easier.  Sometime ago I read Alan Watts:  "To have faith is to trust yourself to the water.  When you swim you don't grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown.  Instead you relax and float."

Relax and float.

Yet, while relaxing and floating are necessary, they are not sufficient; at least not for doing something interesting and meaningful-admittedly values.  To do, and perhaps also to be, something interesting and meaningful, passion and faith must exist as well.  Art, like life, depends part on desperate passion and faith amid unshakable doubts.  A leap of faith must not only be taken despite doubt but in fact depends on those doubts.  This is no leap without doubts.

While faith-the confidence of a better condition-is probably always spiritual in essence, ought not to be religious in practice, in discipline.  Of course, without religious doctrine, as if the case in art, passion and faith often become soft and end up being more attributes of vanity.  In my view, the crucial word in the previous paragraph is "desperate."

Radical doubting.

People vary in their capacity for accepting doubt, especially of cherished beliefs, and they also vary in how much of themselves they are willing to doubt.

from the blog of enrique martinez celaya   www.martinezcelaya.com

Alt. Country.. A novel by Alan Rifkin

I have been in collaboration with a good friend of mine for his current novel. Alan Rifkin is a Long Beach based writer who I have been lucky to be in an artists group with before... and hopefully again. It was interesting working directly from another artists words and to move that into an image to reflect the world of his novel without giving away too much.  

The novel can soon be found online at his website in installments. www.alanrifkin.com

Xtina

Names

Charlie Lima Alpha Uniform Delta India Alpha

Kilo Echo Victor India November

Juliet Oscar Romeo Delta Alpha November

Mike Alpha Tango Tango

Charlie Alpha Tango

Xray Tango India November Alpha

November Alpha Tango Echo

Radio Phonetics:

Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta,
Echo, Foxtrot, Golf,
Hotel, India,
Juliet, Kilo,
Lima, Mike, November, Oscar, Papa,
Quebec, Romeo, Sierra,
Tango, Uniform, Victor,
Whiskey,
Xray,
Yankee and Zulu

distorted photos of photos

I was interested in kevin's photos of photos, and by xtina's deconstruction, though these are more like distortions -mw

passed on to deconstruction

I have been working with particular spaces and deconstructing them and reforming them into a nonsensical space. I want to expand upon this in a new way.

 Today I asked Nathan to print out the image on the right and to destroy or deconstruct it in a way he finds interesting.

 I also asked him to document some part of the process and then to pass it to the next person with his directions.

So... Nater.. tag your it.

xtina

produce

i had to jump on this colorful bandwagon! -mw

On Color Theory Inspiration

Stacks of Color

I was really inspired by Catherine's stacks of beautiful color..so I went home and created my own color wheel of sorts.

i've always thought sunlight coming through the blinds was pretty much the coolest thing ever. do you guys remember in grade school getting school photos taken in front of that striped neon effect? it looked like neon light coming through blinds? if anyone can find an old school photo with this kind of backdrop i'll take you out to lunch.

office plants

I haven't been back to see if it's still there.

mw

Joy in action

This is one of my favorite photos,  my friends daughter wore her flower girl dress as much as she could for about a year, here she runs with her princess ballet slippers, I was so happy that I could capture joy in motion.  

Monsters

Here are some monsters by my friend Grace.

Sometimes when I get scared I want to take them with me.

NH

Happy Monday!

KO