From the Studio

I am sitting in my pajamas, after an hour of working in the studio, having found myself unsuccessful at falling asleep.

This work installs in less than one week now, and it is too big, physically, for me to step back and appropriately assess it. In my minds eye, to be blatant and honest, this is closer to what I wanted my thesis work to resemble, but it is not quite there. Something feels missing. Perhaps it was the shift in media to satisfy a compressed studio space that once resided in the living rooom/office/library/dining room that was in my previous apartment. Perhaps it has suffered from working a majority of near 70 and 80 hour work weeks for the first ear post grad. Perhaps it was from the other projects I invested myself with in the US Dept. of Art and Technology or at American.

Or, maybe it was a loss of interest in the proposal that is now nearly two years old, and the idea of painting it.

12,000 square inches of canvas resides stretched in my studio, with collaged paper glued on top, drawn on in pastel and pencil, and painted over with matte medium. They look like objects and less like paintings. Some portions are highly rendered and others less so. Subtle narratives are existent within them. And they no longer feel like me. They feel like something that once was me - something I've intellectually moved away from for now, but will likely revisit a ways down the road. They look like orphans.

If there is any good that comes out of it, it is the periodical, issue one of Gestalt: a meager 7 pages of content that tilts a tad toward self-indulgent narcissism. But the writing is good. And the sound installation that will accompany the paintings and paper will add a little something - a bit of texture, maybe context.

I'll post images before long, and articles from Gestalt. In the mean time, if you reside in DC, a copy of Gestalt is available at DCCAH, up a ways from the corner of D and 8th. The work will be open for public viewing Nov. 2 at Glenview Mansion Art Gallery in Rockville, near the corner of Viers Mill Road and Route 28, off Baltimore Ave.

Epiphany

This morning, I was working in the annex of my studio (read that as living room), tones of lollapalooza coming from the CD player, when this dawned on me. The fourth track on The Crow soundtrack, “Dead Souls” by Trent Reznor, is a song about telemarketers. It has to be. For evidence I cite the refrain, “They keep calling me.”

Meanwhile, November is going to be busy: exhibition opening at the Glenview Mansion Art Gallery; distribution of Gestalt; dismantling of the grave at AthICA in Athens, GA; learning what happens to a piece in auction, Off the Wall, for VisArt, Rockville, (formerly Rockville Arts Place); artist talk at Glenview; Note 2 Self will be in the Corcoran Faculty Show. Not a bad month.