Noms

So, i'm really into music again.  It's been a long time since I've taken initiative to decide what I really like and to find new (and new to me) artists to be obsessed with.  I spent  lot of time being worried about what others thought...its so not like me in every other aspect of my life. I think since I'm in no way a musician I thought that I didn't know what I was talking about.  Anywho, I've been listening to Aimee Mann again. She's amazing.

Check out this beautiful reclamation of the wadi hanifa wetlands.

It won the Aga Khan Award for Architecture and is 100% deserving. Truly a wonder to look at and a step in the right direction for the reclamation of all of the land that we've destroyed and abandoned.

Anna- Writing the color wheel? Amazing. Thanks for keeping this blog more fine art focused because I'm sure not!  I'll keep writing about obscure kind of artsy things for you if you keep writing about classic art forms for me :)  Also, i'm mailing the 5x7 art board today!


You struck me dumb like radium
Like Peter Pan or Superman
You will come to save me

Modern Artists on Modern Art in Theory: A Complete Text

I've been thinking about writing about art. I've been reading about art. Reading artists writing about art. I've been re-reading Modern Artists on Art copyright 1964. Kandinsky has come to terms with his powers. Mondrian has defined everything that exists in the world. And Klee... Paul Klee says that "...while as a painter I feel that I have in my possession the means of moving others in the direction in which I myself am driven, I doubt whether I can give the same sure lead by the use of words alone."
Strangely, and to my delight, he then takes a full page to "write" a colour wheel. A colour wheel of words. Words. Dah.... er...
Brian has been loosing the line "...dancing about architecture" around me on many occasions as I prepare to send out statements about my work to schools.
To write out a colour wheel is the epitome of writing about art. Simple. So simple. Why didn't I think of it first???? Damn you Klee. And your genius. XOXO.
Anyway, I am going to type it out here, because I love it so much. So now, for you, a colour wheel:

What symbol is now suitable for pure color? In what unit can its properties best be expressed?

In the completed color circle, which is the form best suited for expressing the data necessary to define the relationship between the colors.

Its clear center, the divisibility of its circumference into six arcs, the picture of the three diameters drawn through these six intersections; in this way the outstanding points are shown in their place against the general backcloth of color-relationships.

These relationships are firstly diametrical and, just as there are three diameters, so are there three diametrical relations worthy of mention, namely Red Green Yellow Purple and Blue Orange (i.e. the principal complementary color-pairs).

Along the circumference the main of primary colors alternate with the most important mixed or secondary colors in such a manner that the mixed colors (three in number) lie between their primary components, i.e. green between yellow and blue, purple between red and blue, and orange between yellow and red.

The complementary color pairs connected by the diameters mutually destroy each other since their mixture along the diameter results in grey. That this is true for all three is shown by the fact that all three diameters possess a common point of intersection and of bisection, the grey center of the color circle.

Further, a triangle can be drawn through the points of the three primary colors, yellow, red, and blue. The corners of this triangle are the primary colors themselves and the sides between each represent the mixture of the two primary colors lying at their extremes. Thus the green side lies opposite the red corner, and the purple side opposite the yellow corner, and the orange side opposite the blue corner. There are now three primary and three main secondary colors or six main adjacent colors, or three color pairs.



If you had no concept of "red", this would be meaningless.

Conclusion: artists write for other artists.

Conclusion two: I write for Roni.

Love,
About 3,910,000 results

TURKEYWEEN!

Hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving.  I sure did! Highlight: we were all looking forward to my aunts delicious cranberry sauce that she claimed shes never made before ( How do you forget if you've made something?) and we show up and she says "I found my recipe and made the sauce!" Pulls it out of the fridge and she had not pureed it so it was just a bunch of cut up fruit in strawberry jello!!  Not really worth the time to explain to her that what she made was not sauce but fruit salad.  Haha! It was still delicious!  <3 my family

Going to chill out with some buddies and study tday because tomorrow is full full full.
In order of occurrence:  GRE, set up for HeART of it All, attend art show for a little then lunch with athena, family friend 50th birthday, tear down art show, Dog Days (formally Skies Bleed Black) at the Outpost, home and sleep.

In honor of Dog Days' first appearance under the new name here's Florence + the Machine; Dog Days are Over.  Haha! It seems a little backwards because i certainly don't hope their days are over but it was the only song i could find with the words "Dog Days"

Kay Bye!

My mojo's so dope

Just finished priming the last of my canvases that I hoped to have painted by my self imposed due date of Dec 1st.  Clearly, I will not be finishing all ten on time.  BUT! What is finished has come out better than I could have hoped!  Plus, there's still time, ten days is ten days!  When I originally made the goal I had not expected to switch my grad school aspirations from painting to interior design and with the new path comes new portfolio requirements and the need to take the GRE (Nov 27th, AH!)  So, I've been busy working on some designs, studying, and painting. 

Despite the stress that comes with deadlines and uncharted territory I am very very happy and am honestly don't even feel stressed out. I realized this yesterday, in fact, when I looked down at my hands and noticed my nails are long!? I haven't been biting my nails!  It seems silly but it definitely means something, less overall anxiety perhaps? (Thanks, Yoga!)

NOW! The real reason for this post!  On each of the next three Saturdays I'll be in a group art show :)  They just sort of fell in my lap and it couldn't be more perfect timing. 

Nov 27th- The HeART of it All  (This is a charity show with my younger cousin Meg and some of her friends, I think it's benefiting a few of the kids mission trips to Haiti? Is it bad that I dont know?)

Dec 4th- Downpour Creative/ Engine Room Recording Grand Opening (Super SUPER excited about this)

Dec 11th- Bizarre Bizaar (All women arts and crafts show in Cleveland live/work lofts, curated by the lovely Carmen Navis)

Finally, I learned today that Daniel Day Lewis will be playing Lincoln in Spielberg's upcoming film. A-m-a-z-i-n-g.

-Roni!

Update to my happiness

Um... So Jesse rules, and Dawson rules, and the two cute pooches rule and the two other ladies at Noise Pop rule and my happiness is gigantic.
No, it is literally gigantic.
Look at what they gave me:

5 60x72 canvases.
I love you.

Art&Music

The Art:
I went to kent school of art yesterday thinking it was miss Bakers BFA exhibition opening.  I was mistaken but fortunately she was setting up the installation and so I stopped in to chat with her about it...basically it's great and i cant wait until it's actually her opening next week.

Since I was there already I checked the other galleries and found Andrew Simmons' MFA ceramics candidacy review show.  Anna, you would have flipped for his work...two headed animal ceramic sculptures, including an elephant, birds, unicorns...some gestural ceramic pieces with religious subject matter that were lovely...and small altered book page "drawings" that had impeccable craftsmanship and great detail work. He doesn't have a website that I can find but I will keep looking.

The Music:
This week I got two CDs one new (Kid Cudi: Man on the Moon 2) and one new to me (Mumford & Sons: Sigh No More, 2009).  While they are totally different I love them both, a lot. They each make me feel exactly how I want to feel.

Mumford & Sons: The lyrics are thoughtful and private.  The music itself is generally happy but relaxed. I feel like I am hearing someone talk about me specifically and find comfort in the fact that he absolutely is NOT talking about me and that his topics are universal. Here is the video for "Little Lion Man. I love it.

Kid CuDi: Really really great. I'm pretty sure he was completely stoned during the writing, producing recording, the everything for this album.  And guess what? When I listen to it I feel so relaxed and chilled out that I may as well be too. I think it's rare for a hip hop album to have a soothing effect but that's exactly what happens to me.  I feel like I'm laying on a soft mattress and being completely swallowed by that biggest comforter in the world. Exactly what I need. Here's one that hit the radio already Erase me...definitely not the best song on the CD but it's pritty pritty close.

Alright enough of this, I'm terrible at "reviewing"  but you get the idea.

Here is a tour of MY studio :P

Fort (bedroom)
From left to right: recording studio/Brian's dresser, Shelves, Files, writing workspace
Shaq
stuff I have and things I like
Messy Mess parts
Painting I'm working on about how Mermaids are funding the "War on Terror". I'll elaborate when it is finished...

My desk


TADA workspace multi functional extraordinaire!

NewStudioNewDay

Because my old space sprung a leak I enlisted my pa to help me move the heavy stuff into unit 1. Who knew a flat file weighed a billion pounds? Give or take.  And I have two of them...jealous? Anyway, a painter's studio doesn't need much equipment so the pictures don't show much but, i'm posting a studio tour anyway.  My friend david posted one recently and I enjoyed seeing his. Granted he since has moved to a new, better, space.  Check him out.

After the studio pictures, i'm putting up two figure drawings from the August Dr. Sketchys that I went to.  I had a great time...its a burlesque style open drawing with good people and silly contests. Figure was my thing in school and it had been a long time (2+ years?) since I had drawn a live person. I keep meaning to go again but they sneak up on you. It's not my best work, but for 10 and 20 minute poses I think i still got it! Enjoy!

water cup filled with stained brushes

reference wall

flat file drawers

in progress

<3

opposite side: flat files, lightbox, other in progress pieces, comfy, grandma lamp, and new (dry) place to store art books

work table, mini fridge (necessary), more works in progress, list of potential portrait options

20 minute pose

10 minute pose

-Roni!

Journal of a Cranky Boy

So's I call Roni, and I leave her a message says: Yo, stop bloggin' so much. You makin' me look low-down, dig?
Lazy.
So, really, I just left Roni a message saying I was going to make a blog-post in the near future, and that, basically, validated my tardiness in posting, and forgave my trespasses as we forgive those who post two times in a row to make us look bad. JK. JFK. Just freakin' kidding. President.

H-Bomb, the bomb photographer friend and loyal roommate, took Brian, Jim, and I to a show at NEITOFINEART called States of Kinesis. I, cranky, having not been in a gallery show for more than a year now, looking at all this salable art, not intending to drink any vino or eat any snacks, took to rating the artists out loud, but trying not to be heard by them, silently hoping maybe one would hear me and engage me in conversation, almost, ended up just forcing my friends into my cranky conversation. Luckily, and mostly not to my surprise, looking back at their websites, I would, this morning, afresh and anew, rate them the very same way.

I'll start with my least fav., but Brian's first fav., Eric Bailey. Maybe I have just seen too many cupcakes these last few years. I assume that paintings of sweets (save the mesmerizing and taste-bud-taunting paintings of Wayne Thiebaud (xoxo love love heart drool)) will soon lose their savoriness to the art-buying population. I see cupcake paintings everywhere in the Mission, or on Haight, in every cafe/boutique/gallery around. Not to mention cupcake t shirts, earrings, icons. Cupcakes are even being offered parts in music videos. All in all, I suppose I fell back on what I was taught in school--asking "what does this mean for art? Where will this fit into art history? How is he changing the art world?" And my answers were-- "Nothing. Nowhere. And he isn't." And because he was in a gallery, and I wasn't, and he was unimportant to art as a whole, I was cranky.
And I still stand by that. And I'm still cranky. And. His best painting in the show still bothered me when I realized I would have liked it better if it were a Kehinde Wiley piece. It was of a bear.

Fernando Reyes' paintings were much more interesting than Mr. Bailey's, but I would have prefered him to have just surrendered himself to Adobe. I just do not feel that he needs paint. His pictures were interesting, but the blocks of colours were slightly annoyed by the brush strokes, just enough to itch, but not inspire. His best piece in the show was a sketch. Obviously.

And, strange as it is for me to choose her as my favourite of the night, Peggy Gyulai really kind of made me feel good. She had a depth and softness to her paintings, something that I appreciated, maybe even more-so in my previously mentioned moodiness. It is so not like me to lean toward the colour-fields, and finger print trails, I know. But, especially in that space, she just felt good. And that's okay, right?

Right.

Aaaa

life's ebb and flow

The Flow:
Happy dog for lunch with coworkers. Noms!  Lesley's MFA show. Beautiful!

The Ebb (which was a-plenty today):

I found out my studio had sprung a leak at Scott Olson's open studio show:
Gianna (who has a studio in my same building): "So what was the problem with your studio today?"
Me: "TODAY?!?!"

I ran across the street, straight to my studio where I found my stuff pushed to one side, buckets errrrywhere catching gross yellow ceiling water, and an "I'm sorry" note with a key to my new space (Unit 1).  I was in quite a panic trying to air dry my few artist books that I have and I'm gonna lose a work day moving everything...but on the flow side, the new space is a little bigger for the same price.

After a good old fashioned screaming match with myself in my car over a pocket dial (that's another ebb),  I flowed myself up with some ice cream and a walk in the sleet.

I promise next entry will be less wah wah and more arty art, like I promised last time, hahaha. This was sort of art related...I went to 2 art shows and my studio flooded! It counts. Here are samples of work by the two people I saw tonight.

Lesley Sickle:

Scott Olson:

T.G.I.F

Roni!

"Are you not entertained?!"

A lot of change in my life in a short time. The two biggest changes are these promises:

1. I will not censor myself. I am a generally polite person with generally positive opinions so I don't see this leading to trouble.  If it does, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it...and I will do so in a poised, calm and adult manner.

2. I will no longer isolate myself from the world. I know everyone falls into this trap, it seems impossible to avoid when you're in a happy relationship. Regardless, I will do my best. I've found that I have good friends and family to yap yap yap at while they just listen and let me goooo...that's hard to find, and I won't take it for granted.

No more of this! Back to Art!  "Is this not why you are here?!"

Today I painted alot, I've decided that to expedite my output I will work on multiple pieces at once. Not only will I feel more productive but by switching the paintings frequently I will be able to see them with a fresh eye every time. That's the hope at least, it makes sense in my brain. 

Also, if this blog is all you look at, you probably think i'm all talk with art stuffs. Here's a sketch I errr sketched while in Rome, Italy.  I was waiting for a friend to come meet me for a bike ride at the Piazza del Popolo.  It was really lovely and I did my best to capture it quickly with a sharp 2B pencil and conte crayon.  Enjoy.