Strictly Painting 8 and Planning Process

Tonight I'll have a couple of new ideas on exhibit at Strictly Painting 8 at the McLean Project for the Arts, running through July 30.

Ideas? Yes. Ideas. Or, rather, idea (same idea but two different pieces). As a graduate student I made paintings that referenced collages of torn advertisements that simulated torn posters that found along the streets of Rome. And, of course, I got raked over the coals in critique for one of three reasons: 1) the work was too close to Rotella, Rosenquist, etc, or 2) I wasn't defying Cubism 3) I wasn't being didactic enough with the narrative. After graduate school I chose to stop painting (I teach more digital courses, anyway), until I could figure out the kind of painting I wanted to make.

The pieces on exhibit in McLean are ideas that step toward that goal of making the paintings I want to make. Or, at least, the paintings that I would like to be making now (I'm fickle). Unfortunately, the work might make people think I am trying to tackle Elsworth Kelly or (more locally) J.T. Kirkland - artists I like, but not work that I want to create.

Despite the work on exhibit, I'm holding my cards close to my chest before revealing my hand - I don't want to write about the work, yet.


Also on exhibit in Planning Process at the Arlington Arts Center, are pieces from Out of Print, my series that explores the slow, agonizing death of the newspaper, which is represented by my efforts to erase the front pages of various newspapers from across the country. I'll have 17 papers on display, plus some early digital drafts of the work (the process). Planning Process won't open until June 22, and the work will be on display through September 25.

Odds of winning: fifty – fifty.

I used to say this a lot when I was a carpenter’s assistant shortly after finishing my MFA. At first it drove the foreman bonkers because the statement denies larger calculable factors of winning which some people call statistics. But, really, when you get down to it, you either win or you don’t. And, as Mike Pace of the Iowa Lottery used to say, “you can’t win if you don’t play.”

Yesterday I came home to discover a manila envelope sitting in my mailbox, which can only mean one thing: returned work from a juried art show submission. Inside were four slides. That’s it. No letter. I had to look at the slides to figure out from which jury I was getting my SASE. Thanks, Trawick.

This morning I learned which regional artists were selected for the Trawick Prize courtesy of dcartnews, and noticed my name not among them; this might be what my cryptic slide-return indicated. And, really, that’s not a problem. I entered this year as a last-ditch effort for the young artist award. Even though the statistics were more favorable of winning, my loss would have been better invested in a lotto ticket, which also has a better rate of return.

On the other hand, my work was accepted to Strictly Painting in McLean, unless there was a typo on the MPA website.

Seriously, if I can find all this stuff out online, instead of through SASE, what good is the post office?