Rock Paper Scissors 3rd Show3rd Floor Student Gallery McLaurin Hall, Winthrop U, Rock HillOpening 11/23 @ 6:30 Show Runs 11/23-12/7

Kitchen Art - to explore the medium and to create something for this show at the school.  I actually enjoyed the process because I practice'd drawing lines into the encaustic and then trying different methods to create a variety of line.  I love the layers reacting to each other.  I was not so pleased with the scripting of text but I think if I carved rather than wrote the text I may get a better end result.  I am not sure about adding text/typography into my encaustic artwork like I have with my collages....need to think of how to do it

Please come to this show too - in order of priority, would love it if you looked at the first show at the Loading Dock, it runs until 12/7 and is the first of the series of Holocaust work; the drawing at CCDS is fun; this one is just an encaustic sample but fun as well.  CCDS show runs until 12/13 and this one runs until 12/7.  Constructive comments always welcome.

Rock Paper Scissors 2nd ShowCharlotte Country Day School, Charlotte NC Opening 11/20 @ 3:30 & 6 pmShow runs 11/29 - 12/13

I framed this and hung this drawing from my graduate drawing class this summer.  It is a type of technique adapted from David Dodge Lewis.  I want to explore this in my drawing.  I hope to do more of this and work with the figure with an instructor, S. Simmons at the school who works with the figure from the inside as well as the outside...

Anyway I thought it was the strongest of the half dozen drawings and I wanted to be able to contribute to the shows though trying to meet this (these) requirement(s).  I have to admit even though I am being driven crazy painting for the shows instead of painting for me...I am enjoying working with the other grad students and we are getting to know each other - and it is outside of being stuffed in our studios - as well as knowing the instructors who are coming to see it.

COME TO THE OPENING!  WE WILL HAVE TWO: 1ST  ON FRIDAY 11/20 @ 3:30 PM & 2ND @ 6 PM - Refreshments will be provided

Rock Paper Scissors 1st ShowLoading Dock (Gallery Up) Rock Hill, SCOpening 11/12 @ 6 pm Show runs 11/12 - 12/7

Working steadily - actually like a crazed person - I finished (mostly) the diptych Panim el Panim (Hester Panim & Neirat Panim). I spent three hours on Thursday wiring each of the 18 panels and then another 2.5 hours hanging each panel......  I am happy with how it looks having polished each panel as I hung it.  I think some distance away from it for the next few weeks of the show will help me reevaluate what I need to do to finish it (in addition to completing the edges which I did not have time to do before the show).  I was pleasantly surprised by the commentary I overheard, particularly that viewers were connecting the work to their own memories and experience, though without understanding the label context - they certainly aren't connecting it to my generational memory experience.  It is the first of a long journey and I am not going to get there overnight.....picture of it actually hanging forthcoming (love that word)!

Rock Paper Scissors Show

I haven't been writing for awhile - working, working, working - we MFA grad students have been putting together three shows - the first launched Thursday, we hung the second yesterday, which opens next Friday 11/20, hang the third, 11/21, and it opens Monday 11/23. Posting flyer. Pictures forthcoming and more dialogue.....

Frivolity

Okay I am working in the medium just to see what I can do and also submit something to a local art exhibit meant to encourage people to collect art.  Kind of a cliche' subject matter but I created a small encaustic painting of artichokes to see what I can do and to experiment with the wax medium.  It is not quite finished but most of what is left is layers of medium to seal the work. I love the texture so I am not sure if that is what I want to do with it. Pictures below and somewhat truncated.

Prep Work Done!

Okay second set of nine are prepped and ready.  Tomorrow I will start working the imagery.  Short post will be posting pictures of the companion piece by the end of the week.  

Mostly trying to work beyond the concrete.  I am working on the concepts for the next set as well.

The second group may be a long series based on the organic and inorganic; human and mechanical; and there is something in the concept of community vs. bureaucracy.  We'll see.  I have come up with a solid idea but don't want to explore it quite yet on the blog.  I will get started on it within the next week or two.  I will learn how to create urethane (sic) molds to pour wax into and hopefully begin learning how to mold, bend, alter, raw steel which I would like to include in the panel paintings.  I spoke to Courtney and I need to start making the model for the mold.  I need to go and speak to Doug about working with steel (or maybe Shawn).

More on all of that.

Started 2nd Set of Panels

Spent the last week making and prepping panels.  This will be the sister-companion piece to the first nine panels.  Again, another 9 - approx 12x12" birch panels. This is a total of 18 panels, which has particular significance in Judaism.  It is called "Chai" and means life.  I think it is an important number and has significance to the two combined pieces.  The second piece is loosely titled, Face Revealed, related to the first, Hiding Face.  I am still journaling to articulate what more of this means in succinct terms.

Celebrating the high holy days and Yom Kippur this week gave me an opportunity for self-reflection but I also had several friends in my Jewish community come to my home for break fast and we were able to further discuss what it is I am doing and why.  I didn't realize how important it was to have a discussion that though related to art, was more related to the cultural representation by people who would be affected by what I am doing.  It was good.  I will publish the final pictures for Hester Panim and the companion piece when I have something to show.

Journaling - Final Post Today

Finally, upon encouragement from my painting instructor, Janice, I will try and focus and work off my dream imagery and research into this content - I am reading a number of essays from several sources that struggle with and express the ongoing need and resistance to aesthetically representing the Shoah. I may try and do this through the blog, though I think I will continue to use the notebook.

This Semester

My objective is to create a least two-nine panel pieces with a possibility of two additional nine panel pieces all measuring approximately 13x13" for a total size for each piece to be approximately 3x3' size.  18 is a significant Jewish number.  It represents Chai, which means "Life" in Hebrew.  The second piece concept is a sister-companion piece tentatively called "Neriat Panim" in Hebrew, G-d's facing forward. That's conceptually.  Technically, I intend to continue to learn the medium.  I also am researching making silicone molds built from images that I have created that I can pour medium into and affix to the surface of the panel.  I also want to work with more birch boxes to see how I can develop breaking the planes of the panel surface.

Project Proposal

Last spring I took a really good art history class at UNCC.  I actually had to move the proverbial mountain of the registration system to get into the class taught by Dr. Jay Emerling.  It was called "Aesthetic Representation of the Holocaust".  I wanted to take this class because I had been struggling with, for a lack of a better word, "a calling", to tackle my personal deep feeling of obligation to be part of generational witnessing of the Shoah.  The class blew my mind in some many ways and the challenge of this class provided me the opportunity to give myself permission to pursue this artistic journey. In addition, I also had the opportunity to view a 2009 Spring show by Roy Strassberg "Holocaust Bone Structures:  Black Angels" and have him speak about his struggle to find a way to appropriately and visually discuss the bureaucratic methodical mass murder "as a subject for artistic expression".  Roy also took time to discuss this subject in our class.  This is the subject that I am tackling.  I am exploring how can I (this generation) attempt to bridge the lacuna, the gap, that separates us from those who experience the event, in a meaningful way, in a visual narrative.  I want to raise questions inside every viewer to question their understanding of this Event and their timeless relationship to the event as a human being. I believe it to be uniquely Jewish, the Shoah, but one that cannot have a fence built around it, if we hope to "Never Forget".  This first piece does not yet have a name but the concept behind it is "Hester Panim" hebrew for G-d's turning his face.

Getting Started

I am starting a new blog today to work out the issues for a new phase in my art exploration.  I have taken the leap into finishing my traditional art education through my opportunity to be part of the MFA program at Winthrop University.  I am very excited about this.  I started the last week of August.  Traditionally an oil painter, in the last few years I moved into collage because I love to work into and out of the surface of the substrate I am working on.  Soooo I decided to begin something I never thought I would have the opportunity to do - encaustic painting.  I saw a show last spring in Asheville, NC and was enthralled with the surface created by painting in wax.  It is so much beyond thick oil on panel and collage.  I set up my studio at the school and after my supplies finally arrived, I got started.  The series of pictures I will be posting will show the technical work to understand the medium and to start a series of paintings based on a very personal and deeply disturbing subject - the Shoah.  More on this later.