Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Contemporary Charleston 2011: Under the Radar

I am so honored to be included in this incredible exhibition... Please check out the 7 other talented artists featured in the show! I've included some installation shots, so you can get a feel for how the gallery space was broken up between the 8 of us. For more info on each artist, please CLICK HERE to see their profiles from the feature in Charleston Magazine, which is serving as the catalog for the show.



and here are the artists in no particular order...

Melinda Mead


Greg Hart
 


 DH Cooper


Nina Garner

Conrad Guevara
 

 

 Rebecca West Fraser


 Alan W. Jackson


Lauren Frances Moore

The artists will be giving lectures on their work on the following Saturdays at 5 pm...

  • July 2: Rebecca West Fraser and Lauren Frances Moore
  • July 9: Conrad Guevara and Melinda Mead
  • July 16: Greg Hart and Alan W. Jackson
  • July 23: Nina Garner and DH Cooper

Saturday, May 28, 2011

some photos of the opening

photo by Reese Moore of Charleston Magazine

photo by Reese Moore of Charleston Magazine
The above photo is of myself (cheese!) with Rebecca Silberman, Program Coordinator at the Halsey and co-curator of the show

 photo by Kinsey Gidick of Charleston City Paper



Friday, May 27, 2011

or

Last night was the opening reception for Contemporary Charleston 2011: Under the Radar at the City Gallery at Waterfront Park. There was an incredible turnout and I am so honored to be grouped with such a talented bunch of artists! I will post more on the opening and the other artists soon, but for now... I'll show you what I made.

These photos were taken before the opening, and before all the vinyl went up. That big open space to the right of the installation now is filled with my name in large print and my profile from Charleston Magazine.  Stay tuned for more photos!



Wednesday, May 18, 2011

installing at the city gallery: rolling with the punches

 SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION... how convenient (NOT)

But I'm optimistic... I'll make it work to my advantage... somehow

what I have so far

Sunday, May 15, 2011

tony orrico

 This past semester I took a drawing class. Sure, I can draw a figure and a still life, but I've had trouble trying to figure out how to integrate drawing into my studio practice. So many people say it's a critical exercise for a sculptor, but even so... there a a number of ways to put it into practice. Some sculptors draw out their plans for sculptures. Others create finished drawings that are pieces on their own, still relating back to representations of their sculptures. But then there are artists who take a different approach to drawing. I think of the famed sculptor Richard Serra, who makes very process-based drawings, which I fine quite interesting. "Drawing is a verb" says Serra.

I really like this quote I found HERE that discusses my very dilemma...

"Process, and the trace of that process, are integral to drawing. The action used to make a mark becomes that mark. The drawing is an image of an action. The visual marks made by sound, the doing and undoing of a mark, the space of a mark, at their core all have the essence of an action.

A drawing and a sculpture, there is no clear line between the two. Some sculptures are three dimensional drawings. What begins as a drawing can become a sculptural object. A conversation develops between the two dimensional and the three dimensional. Materials used for making sculpture are used for drawing - so plastic tubing used within a sculpture is then dipped in ink and used as a drawing tool - and the sculpture and the drawing become part of each other. Discovering how an object draws itself is a way of understanding the essence of that object."

So, this this brings me to the drawings/performances of Tony Orrico, which have ignited this entire dialogue. I wish I had been exposed to these in drawing class. One day when I'm a grown-up (ha), if I ever have to opportunity to teach a drawing class (or some sort of special topics class), I would love to assign projects that are performative and process-based. The possibilities are endless, and the creative potential is without bounds. Check out these videos of Tony Orrico... they are utterly mesmerizing.





Saturday, May 14, 2011

a drawing

This is a drawing I did as a final project for drawing class. It is the product of much deliberation, as drawing is not an active part of my creative process. Rather than draw something from observation, I wanted to make a piece that could potentially fit into my wider body of work. I went for a more process-based approach, which I won't even attempt to fully explain. I'll just say that it involved a number of steps, including reading aloud three definitions of "drawing" with a drawing utensil attached to my chin...




loose charcoal on panels
9" x 12" each

material prep

This week I've been working out behind the sculpture studio to prep my materials for the Under the Radar install. I have a plan.... and I need an outrageous amount of this polyurethane-coated material to make it happen.

Monday, May 9, 2011

Contemporary Charleston 2011: Under the Radar


In just one week from today I will begin installing at Charleston's City Gallery at Waterfront Park! I am one of 8 emerging artists that have been selected for the annual Contemporary Charleston exhibition. We've had to keep our lips zipped for the past few months in keeping with the show's theme, "Under the Radar," but the May issue of Charleston Magazine was released just last week with profiles of each artist, so now we can tell the world! Click HERE to see the online version of the magazine article.

The show will open on May 26th and will stay up through the end of July!

Time for me to get to work!!!!!!

Friday, May 6, 2011

the franconia blog

Below is a little something I wrote for the Franconia Sculpture Park blog. Bridget Beck (click her name to see her awesome work!) writes a fantastic blog for the park in which she talks about all things sculpture, not ONLY the on-goings at the park. The blog includes poetry, pictures, definitions, philosophy, and musings of all kind. I recommend checking it out!

 click HERE to see more images of what I made at the park

Here's what I had to day about my time at the park...

“Last June, completely unaware of what was in store, I packed up my Jeep and headed up to the odd place we all know and love, Franconia Sculpture Park. An “Intern Artist Fellowship” seemed like a great way to spend a summer. I thought, “why not?” I was intrigued by the expanse of the place and was invigorated by the thought that I would finally get the chance to make a sculpture without the bounds of pesky doorways and stairwells often encountered in traditional art-viewing institutions.

Upon prepping for my stay, I emailed John Hock with some questions concerning my plans for a very large and very likely overly-ambitious project and his response was this… “We have space. Ambition is good.” And I came to realize, soon after arriving, that this is a widespread theme at Franconia, an anthem of sorts, attesting to the “anything is possible” kind of optimism that is ever-present at the park.So yea, I made a really huge sculpture… but what else is new?

What’s great about Franconia is that I wasn’t the only one doing big things. At Franconia, I was surrounded (and I mean SURROUNDED) by talent and ambition that I had never before experienced. It was the first time I ever spent a length of time with REAL artists, at various stages of their careers, and I learned a great deal about what a future as an artist (particularly a sculptor) might entail. I picked brains for advice and learned much about opportunities that I never knew existed.

The Franconia family (network) is never-ending it seems. It really is a small, small world we sculptors live in. The contacts I made last summer (in addition to the sculpture I made) have proven to be quite valuable in my minimal professional development thus far. Exhibitions, grants, magazine articles, and grad school offers have all followed my summer spent at FSP. Every young sculptor ought to spend some time in a place like Franconia. It should be a requirement.”

CLICK HERE to see the rest of the blog!

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

sharing a brain with anish kapoor

So, a little over a year ago I made this sculpture...

click HERE for more images and info

And I just came across this image of Anish Kapoor in his studio with a work in progress...


WHAAAAT? Wow... I am really excited to see the finished product. I wonder if he'll build a real deal 'tower of blobel' all the way to the sky like I was hoping to do... hmmmm

It's so bizarre when this happens. Every now and then an artist will make something, get really excited about it, and then find out that somebody else has already done it. It's happened to me before, and it evokes an odd range of emotions... excitement, confusion, frustration, inspiration... all at once! But this isn't even a finished piece. I wonder when Anish conceptualized it. And when this image was taken.

I'm a huge fan of Anish Kapoor's work and was thinking a lot about it when I conceptualized my "Tower of Blobel." I was looking at some of his larger metal biomorphic forms, while I was in a foundry (metal casting) class last year. Perhaps I was tapping into the depths of his brain somehow. Weird.

You know what is also really freaky...? While I was typing this post, my roommate Sanaz commented on an earlier post, saying that one of my students' sculptures reminded her of my tower of blobel as well...  click HERE to see it

childlike enthusiasm

I often talk about wanting to incite a childlike enthusiasm in my work... and this is what I mean by that!



He can't get enough of Yayoi Kusama's infinite dot room! What energy!

the postcard show

I will have a small piece included in the inaugural one night exhibition, Postcard Show: Wish you Were Here!, taking place at the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art on Wednesday, May 11, 2011 from 6-8 PM.


EVENT DETAILS:
Inspired by the RCA Secret show held annually at the Royal College of Art in London, the Postcard Show is a one night exhibition of anonymously displayed 4 x 6 inch artwork. The identities of the postcard creators will only be revealed after ...a work is sold for the set price of $75. All proceeds will benefit the Skirt! Scholarship Fund at the College of Charleston.

Along with juried submissions, the Postcard Show will also feature the work of prominent members from the local art community. The invitational and juried submissions will be mixed together in the installation to keep the prices consistent and buying mysterious until the card is purchased.
Food by O-Ku! DJs Cassidy & the Kid! Champagne Bar by La Bubbly!

Tickets are $10 but included artists get in free!

BUY TIX in advance HERE:
http://skirt.com/postcardtix