My new year’s resolution is to make at least one finished piece of artwork every month this year. At the close of January, I will have a couple, thanks to the instruction, hospitality, and printing press of my friend Jennifer Young! After getting some good prints using the fun process of paper litho, I’m going back into them a little and expect to have some done by the end of the evening, and the end of the month.
This is a sketch for a piece I’m working on for a benefit at Art House in December – I can’t show the actual piece because part of the auction concept is to cover the artists’ signatures until the end of the evening! So this is just a little clue to “what’s in my house.” Tickets are available on their website, here, for a rousing good time at Art House Revealed on December 2!
Greetings friends! Eight months is a long time between posts, but Alex just started a blog and it kind of kicked me into gear (harvardink.com – read it!). Between work and the gallery, my artwork output has been a bit light, but I did manage to finish two pieces over the summer.
“Who is This Hermano You Speak Of?” (left) got donated to The Cleveland Museum of Natural History’s spectacular Women’s Committee benefit on October 1 and was sold at their silent auction. I traded “The Bird Has Died and You’re the Emergency Contact” (right) for a beautiful Pica Bag from my talented friend, Madeline Hoyle, of Blicksbags Sustainable Transport. Thankfully, sometimes opportunities come up that give you a reason and a deadline for making artwork – a couple of months ago I was asked to take part in the Morgan Conservatory’s Paper Bank project! Along with 31 other artists, I received twelve sheets of handmade paper and a lovely handcrafted journal, the purpose of which is to write my feedback about each paper. Funded by Cuyahoga Arts & Culture, this feedback will be used to determine what kinds of paper they should offer for sale in the future. I have had some great fun with this paper, which has given me a reason to try some new things including some collage and paper mache! The Paper Bank Project Exhibition at the Morgan opens on Saturday, October 15 from 7-9pm – see some amazing artwork by artists using some amazing and beautiful paper.
Lots of fun things coming up in the next few months, too – we have a great show up at Proximity now, “Extra Lives,” and our November show will feature our friends Jen and James Young, who are creating collaborative pieces using printmaking and painting. The Youngs will be our last show of 2011, and then we’re going to take some time before the 2012 season begins to make a few changes to the gallery space (don’t worry – all good!).
In other news, I’ve been soaking up some sweet sweet Cleveland architecture. My last couple of months have included several exploratory dog walks with Harvard around the neighborhood scoping out interesting buildings – both inhabited and abandoned – that are attractive, run-down, patterned, uniquely-shaped, creepy, and intriguing. There are lots of ideas clattering around in my mind about a new body of work linking this subject with some of the patterns and animals I’ve been working with already. Tune in to find out more!
Onward and upward, see you next time…
I got the best birthday present today…work was closed for a snow day! This has been an incredibly productive one–I got up (fairly) early, swept around the apartment, cleaned the bathroom, ran the dishwasher, ate lunch with Alex on his break, took the pup to a vet appointment, and got my city taxes done–whew! There’s about a foot of snow outside on this lovely Cleveland day, and though the roads are looking better than they were this morning, I’m in for the evening. I’ve got a cup of coffee next to me, a pooped dog curled up in the adjacent armchair, and I’m ready to write this blog post.
First, though, I have to post a few photos of our adorable and photogenic dog, Harvard. Alex took some good ones this week and, like any ridiculous pet owner who thinks everyone wants to see pictures of their animals, I feel a great need to share them.
looks a little like the "Little Rascals" dog, right?
I have never met an animal who yawns as much as he does
Okay, with that out of the way, here are some images from an artist that I don’t know personally but whose work I adore, and discovered about a year ago through a now-defunct blog. Diem Chau lives and works in Seattle and makes these beautiful and delicate textile/ceramic pieces below. She also has a blog, The Pleasure of Tiny Things, that provides some enjoyable reading.
Long Braid - porcelain plate, silk, thread
Hair - porcelain bowl, silk, thread
Hand - porcelain cup, silk, thread
These next images are from The Fox Is Black, a great art and design site with five creative and connected contributors who always have something interesting to share. A little over month ago, they started a project called Re-covered Books competition, where readers submit cover “updates” to classic books and one winner is chosen for each book. The Great Gatsby was first and produced some really unique designs–I’ve posted two of my favorites here.
A winner was chosen for the first competition, and the new book being covered is William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. The competition for this one ends today, and I’m looking forward to see which cover wins. One of these days if I find myself with some free time, I may try my hand at this project!
Virginia opossum, 2009, pen and watercolor on paper (9" x 12")
All the opossums I’ve drawn and, now, sculpted have been inspired by a little baby named Charlie. I started working in The Cleveland Museum of Natural History’s Admissions department in 2005 when I was at CIA, and was there mostly on weekends and evenings, but every so often I would work on weekdays that I didn’t have class. One of the Wildlife department volunteers came in every Tuesday afternoon and would walk around the museum with an animal from the wildlife “collection”–lizards, skunks, snakes, and other such native fauna. Not long after I started, she came up to the desk on a slow Tuesday afternoon with this tiny gray opossum baby about the size of a tennis ball. Charlie looked not unlike a kitten on steroids with a longer face and little marble eyes (look here), and was sometimes allowed to run around the lobby, also not unlike a cat. Over the course of a few months she grew into the bizarre creature that is an adult opossum, which I also happen to think is adorable! Coupled with the fact that the Virginia Opossum is the only marsupial
found in the US or Canada, this makes the animal pretty much my favorite beast.
O possum, my possum, 2010, paper mache, chicken wire, latex paint, hand-dyed cotton, typewriter ring, wood branch
O possum, my possum, side view
The photos above are from our first show at Proximity last August–Alex, Laura, Andy and I (Laura and Andy are our friends who are helping out with the gallery) had our work up and this piece was my first “official” paper-mache sculpture. It is currently in a corner of our bathroom waiting for the spring or summer when I can find a new branch–the one in this photo started rotting and I had to get rid of it–and hang it up in our apartment.
Opossum, 2010, pen, watercolor and gold leaf on wood panel (8" x 8")
Also in Proximity’s opening show!
Well, it’s been a week and a half since I started this thing…I’m going to have to get used to writing and posting more often. The following photos are of work I did near the end of my art school career that have, in one way or another, informed the work that came after it.
Root Systems, 2006, felted wool and crocheted wool yarn dyed with madder root, walnut husks, cutch (acacia resin)
“Root Systems,” my first foray into large-scale felting AND near the beginning of when I began working with natural dyes. This project turned into realization that I could definitely make a costume with this method of construction…
Root Systems, in process
From the incidental “hey, I think I can fit into this,” the idea of the corn costume was born. Dyed with onion skins collected from my dinners, turmeric, and marigolds taken from my down-the-street neighbors, this costume would be the beginning of the corn theme that ran through the rest of my thesis work in my fifth year of school.
Corn Maiden, 2006, performance, costume: felted wool dyed with onion peels, turmeric and marigolds, cotton, bamboo yarn
The whole basis for this body of work came from reading the interesting and informative book by Michael Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Next I picked up The Story of Corn by Betty Fussell, which was less about the food industry and more about the mythology and history of maize.
Fossilized popcorn has been discovered in ancient central American caves (kernels no. 1), in process
Then came the shibori–I started doing tie dye on silk.
Fossilized popcorn has been discovered in ancient central American caves (kernels no. 1), 2007, silk dyed with turmeric and logwood
Stalk, star, 2007, silk dyed with logwood
Star of the overflowing grain bins (bisected ear), 2007, silk dyed with turmeric and madder root
From here, I began to do some tests making dye paste with natural dye concentrate. There’s a defined process for making dye paste with powdered synthetic dyes, but I wanted to get the same effect using the colored concentrate that comes from boiling dye material in water for 30 minutes to an hour or more. The resulting liquid is where you would normally submerge your fabric or yarn to be dyed but since the base of most dye pastes is sodium alginate, a product of brown seaweed, I thought that the same process could be used but without the synthetic chemicals! Below are the results–these silkscreen images were created with natural dye paste. I have actually had these in a Tupperware storage bin since just after my BFA show because I’m deathly afraid of them fading!
Eroticorn, 2007, turmeric, logwood, indigo and tannin silkscreened on cotton
Cornshine (detail), 2007, turmeric, curry and onion silkscreened on cotton
Corntraption (detail), 2007, madder root, turmeric and indigo silkscreened on cotton
So that’s that–the most recent textile design work I’ve done and the work (excepting Root Systems) I showed in my Thesis show in 2007. The colors and patterns stuck around, though the corn didn’t. The next post will show some of my most recent work, I think. Cheers!
Greetings. Welcome to my very first blog post…ever. This site was born from my inaction in the website department and my inability to spend a large chunk of time making files consistent, keeping up on a static page, and overall fear of commitment to paying for a website ($16 a month for Other People’s Pixels–a great site but would I get enough use out of it to make it worthwhile?). Thus, the blog format is an obvious choice because: it’s free, I can have fun choosing themes and colors, and it’s really easy to add to and change. Ta-da!
What I will add to this blog:
1. My own artwork–new stuff, old stuff and ideas for projects
2. Art and design that I enjoy
3. News from the gallery I run in Cleveland
4. Various sundry other things
I hope to make this blog entertaining, and I hope you enjoy the site!
Cheers, Beth
