Monthly Archives: November 2014

A Walk in the Park

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maples at the Washington Park Arboretum

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berries of the iris foetidus

Oh, the news. The bad, bad news out of Ferguson. It’s a gloomy day here in the northwest corner of the country; rainy and dark without much chance of clearing either in the skies or in the newspaper.

In this week of Thanksgiving, the differences between the haves and the have nots seems even starker. In our warm and comfortable home we are happy to have our older daughter home from college for the holiday. It’s such a joy to hear her excitement in what she’s studying, to see her embrace the life of the mind. At dinner I watch as she and her sister tease and laugh, sharing puns and the clever inside jokes of a lifetime raised together in a home with easy access to education.

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a decaying gunnera leaf

 

Seattle is a segregated white city, and getting whiter and more segregated all the time. We are generally spared seeing overt images of racism in our day-to-day lives. Or maybe it’s just the blinders we are wearing as we go from task to task in our reliable cars to our well-paying jobs.

I had a rough time growing up. My parents divorced early. We were on welfare, got food stamps. I was ashamed to be on the free lunch program at school. My mother moved us from place to place, always thinking some place else was better than where she was. Her struggles with mental illness still color my experience.

 

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the fruit of the medlar tree

But somehow I escaped those circumstances. Being smart helped. And being white helped, too. I got some higher education, (didn’t graduate but that’s another story), got some therapy, and remade my life. I met and married a wonderful man, had two beautiful, intelligent girls, and live a comfortable middle-class life. Not everyone is so lucky.

My younger daughter is taking American History in high school. Right now they are studying the Constitution, reading it and transcribing it into modern English. Last night, after hearing the news the the grand jury in Missouri had declined to indict Officer Darren Wilson in the death of MIchael Brown, she came to me as I folded laundry. She said she just couldn’t do her homework, that reading the Constitution was just too depressing. That those beliefs that our country is founded on still don’t apply to people of color. She’s right, of course.

Our lives are a walk in the park.

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fallen leaf from a plane tree

 

 

Further Explorations with Monotypes

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printing up a storm in the studio

I’ve been intrigued enough by making monotypes on both the homemade gelatin plate and the commercial Gelli plate to explore in a more systematic fashion. So far, I’ve tried four different media, Speedball water-based printing ink, thickened dye, Golden Fluid Acrylics, Akua soy-based ink, and Dy-Na-Flow paint. Each gives different effects, each has its benefits and weaknesses.

My first experiments were with the Speedball water-based inks. I got some great effects on the Gelli plate. The ink rolled out beautifully and I got wonderful detail. The downside to the water-based ink is that it isn’t permanent. I tried to use some washes over the top, and even after drying and applying a spray matte fixative, the ink ran when I applied anything with water.

Thickened dyes gave me some good results, although the alginate thickener is problematic for monotypes. The nature of the alginate (like a big pot of mucus) makes the prints blobby and streaky. Interesting in its own way but not a smooth background. My blog post Printing with Gelatin details these trials.

print g paints When I got back from New York I tried Golden Fluid Acrylics. These gave me just terrific results on the gelatin plate. It brayered out beautifully and gave me crisp details and interesting positive/negative effects. I haven’t tried them on the Gelli or the plexi yet. Those experiments are up next.

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Golden Fluid Acrylics on the gelatin plate

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another print with the Golden

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detail of a “ghost” print with the Golden

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Akua Intaglio on a gelatin plate

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Akua on the Gelli plate

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Positive Akua ink of the Gelli plate

print a inkNext printing session was with Akua soy-based Intaglio Inks. I tried them on three different printing substrates: the gelatin plate, the Gelli plate, and a plain old sheet of plexiglass. Again, different results with each type of plate. On the gelatin the ink didn’t roll out smoothly. It gave a “pebbled” surface, which I kind of like since I’m all about visual texture, but didn’t afford the kind of detail I got with the paints. I got a better result on the Gelli plate, but again, not as crisp as with the paint on the gelatin. Interestingly, I got really great results on the Gelli plate when I pressed the inked up doily onto the plate and then printed the “postive” image rather than the negative. My third try was on the plexiglass and that didn’t work at all with the doily I was using to make marks.

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Akua ink on plexi

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Trace monograph using Akua on plexi

The one thing that worked better with the Akua on the plexi was a Trace Monotype (also known as a Draw Through). A trace monotype is when you ink up a plate, put a piece of paper (or fabric) on the surface and then draw on the back of the material to create a design. I’ve done this with inks and with thickened dye and love the effect, especially because you can then create a negative of your drawing by printing what’s left on the plate as a “ghost” print. This technique didn’t work at all with the gelatin or the Gelli, perhaps because I was afraid to really press in case I permanently damaged the flexible plates.

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Dy-Na-Flow on gelatin

Last test was today with Dy-Na-Flow paints. The paints are specifically for fabric and have a very light hand. They are quite “watery” and formulated to work much like dyes. I’ve used them for batik when dye wasn’t appropriate. I figured that they might work much like the Golden Fluid Acrylics. Well, they did and they didn’t. I wasn’t able to roll the paint out with a brayer because it’s much thinner in body than the Golden. I applied it with a foam brush to the gelatin plate, the Gelli plate and the plexi and again, got different results with each. Surprisingly, it worked much better on the gelatin and the plexi than the Gelli. It completely separately on the Gelli, and though it made an interesting texture on its own, I wasn’t able to make any marks into the medium.

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Dy-Na-Flow on Gelli

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Dy-Na-Flow on gelatin plate

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“ghost” print of Dy-Na-Flow on gelatin

The best results were on the gelatin plate. The paint created an interesting “bubbly” texture which carried through to a second “ghost” print. The plexi results were okay, got some detail but the application wasn’t very thick so the color is light in value.

More testing to come with different media, different kinds of paper, and layering. I’ve already gone through over 300 pieces of paper. One of these days I’ll have to figure out what to do with them, but for now it’s just fun every day in the studio.

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Dy-Na-Flow on plexi

 

Walking in NYC

After seeing art and eating, the best thing to do in NYC is walk the parks and neighborhoods. Here are some images from my recent trip to the big city.

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The Castle in Central Park

 

 

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afternoon sun on the buildings

 

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New York schist with horse and buggy

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gingko leaves

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plantings on the High Line growing up through the original rail line

 

 

 

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chartreuse shrub in the afternoon light

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old and new along the High Line

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graffiti on the street in Chelsea

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Mondrian scaffolding?

 

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street view in Chinatown

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wares for sale along the street in Chinatown–now I wish I’d bought some rather than just taking a picture

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still life in a bin

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lovely abacuses (or abacusi?)

 

Art Highlights from a Short Trip to NYC

Egyptian Temple at The Met

The Temple of Dendur at The Met

I got back a couple days ago from New York City. The impetus for the trip was to see the Matisse Cut Paper show that had traveled from the Tate in London. It was fun to be in the big city. My travel companions through four museums, multiple galleries and neighborhoods, and some adventurous eating were my husband and my 16-year-old daughter.

Firstly, Henri Matisse: The Cut Outs did not disappoint. It actually exceeded my expectations. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, photography was not allowed in the exhibition. I would have loved to capture images of the meticulously layered works, but not having my camera forced me to be in the moment and let the works in through my eyes. It was fascinating to see how Matisse, often through the hands of his assistants, layered small pieces of colored paper over a larger shape changing the shapes fractionally until they were right. According to wall text, when working on the Blue Nudes he labored over the first one, Blue Nude #4, for days to get it right. The deceptively simple shapes of the composition are made up of many small bits of colored paper. Getting that perfection then apparently loosened his hand. The other three Blue Nudes in the exhibition appear effortless, each shape flowing from a single cut.

It’s amazing to think about what an innovator Matisse was, that this way of working hadn’t been done before, or at least not as finished art. The freshness and the vigor of the artist come through when seeing the works in person. Multiple pinholes are visible in the paper, a testament to the artist’s thought and process. There is a dimensionality in the layers of the papers, wrinkles and edges, that can’t be seen in reproduction. Go if you can! The exhibition is at MoMA until February 8, 2015.

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10/27/69 by Sam Gillian

After spending an hour-and-a-half in the Matisse exhibit, we wandered some through MoMA. I was particularly drawn, big surprise, to those artists who were working with fiber-based media and taking it from 2-d into 3-d. This painting on canvas by Sam Gilliam from 1969 becomes sculpture by the act of gathering and tying the material. Canvas is fabric, fabric is dimensional.

The next day we walked the High Line and visited some galleries in Chelsea. Even though I hadn’t done my homework on which galleries to see, we struck gold. Three that stood out were El Anatsui at Jack Shainman, Shea Hembrey at Bryce Wolkowitz, and Kwang Young Chun at Hasted Kraeutler.

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piece by El Anatsui at Jack Shainman Gallery

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detail of El Anatsui piece showing the intricate shaping and tying of mundane materials–the metal wrappers of alcohol bottles.

At Jack Shainman, El Anatsui’s show, Trains of Thought, showed six large pieces, including one piece that was free-standing rather than wall-hung. The large pieces sparked with energy and intention.

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Shea Hembrey: Multiverses, installation shot at Bryce Wolkowitz

Shea Hembrey: Multiverses at Bryce Wolkowitz was presented as the work of five artists working in different media and curated by Hembrey. In actuality, each “artist” in this compelling show of paintings and sculpture was a persona of the curator, a fact stated only on the last page of the show’s catalog. Although I didn’t know it when I viewed the show, I had a keen sense of the interplay and through-lines of the works, and interestingly, responded more to some pieces than others. It brings up issues I’ve talked about with other artists, about being defined and hemmed in by success with one media or style. Perhaps the answer is for all of us to become five artists instead!

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Kwang Young Chun at Hasted Krauetler Gallery

IMG_3415The Kwang Young Chun show at Hasted Kraeutler blew my mind. The 70-year-old Korean artist creates dynamic, labor-intensive works that blur the line between painting and sculpture, between two- and three-dimensions. Triangles of polystyrene are wrapped with Korean mulberry paper and tied, then affixed and painted to create layered fantastic landscapes. The interplay of dimension and color-field were mesmerizing and compelling.

On our last day we visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art and saw Death Becomes Her, a show of 18th and 19th Century mourning clothes. It was beautiful and somber, the stories and culture as interesting as the design and workmanship of the clothing. It’s crazy to just have two hours to spend at the Met, but that’s what we had. We zoomed through a odd collection of greatest hits and spent time looking at the musical instruments for the musicians in the family.

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installation view, Death Becomes Her at The Met

In all, we visited the Museum of Art and Design (and lucked into being at the opening of New Territories, art and design from Latin America), Museum of Modern Art, The American Museum of Natural History, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and a number of galleries in Chelsea. Add in walks through Times Square, Chinatown, the Lower East Side, Central Park, and Little Italy. It was a thrilling, exhausting, and inspiring three days!