Proof of Progress

My show is approximately three months away. I have enough work to make a show, but I am still producing art hoping to create a masterpiece. I thought that I would post a few pictures for proof of progress.

You cant handle the truth.

Here are two pictures of my finished elephant sculpture. I have had this elephant sculpture on my mind ever since Bro Tolutau told me the story in college. I have thought of many different versions of it over the years, including covering the elphant with people completely. However for this one I wanted to keep it simple, I used just one person to emphasize the enormity of the elephant. I was flipping through an old sketchbook from six years ago and I was suprised to see that this was not a new idea but one that I had forgotten I had had. I was startled to see how closely the drawing matches the sculpture because I didnt reference it conciously in any way.

I entered it in the county fair and it got first place for sculpture, (I think it was the only sculpture there). They usually have drawings and photos, and even paintings, but not much in the way of sculpture. The ladies who registered it for the fair asked if it was made from a kit. I got a call from the local paper and they asked me a few questions about my process and inspiration. They included a couple of paragraphs about it in the last issue. Its funny I have been here for seven years but only recently has my art migrated outside the classroom. Its the second time in four months that my art has been mentioned in the local paper. I guess Im just less busy now that my degree is finished.

at the bottom is a picture of my local clay sculpture which I am excited about and disappointed at the same time. It cracked deeply durring the firing. From what I have been reading this is a shrinkage issue which can be remedied by adding another less plastic (shrinkable) clay, or by adding grog. I dont want to add another clay because I really like the idea of a sculpture made completely from this area. So I will have use grog, which means crushing up the some of the clay in dry form, firing it and adding the fired gravel to the wet clay. Which is more work but thats life. I am really excited about the color of the fired clay it is a deep earthy orange. In its raw state it was an uninspiring brown, To put it bluntly, as my son remarked, "it looks like poop".  When I opened the kiln and saw this beautiful color I was almost giddy. I dont know why but this local clay really excites me. I am in the process of making more, hopefully I will  improve my results. I will keep you posted.

Funny Thing

This is inspired by the story of the blind men arguing about the nature of an elephant

This will be a wall haning.

The other day I had this conversation with my wife.
Leslie: whats wrong
Me: I am having an idea
Leslie: it looks like you are having a stroke, your eyes are rolling back into your head
Me: I am looking at the idea.

I have wanted to be an artist as long as I can remember. I think it may have started from my dads practice of bringing home scrap paper from work and putting it in a drawer in the kitchen.  I remember long hours spent drawing  ray guns, monsters, comic book muscle men. I drew all the time, I kept a pretty regular sketchbook after about 6 grade. I wish I knew what happened to them all. Drawing was my primary interest from kindergarten to 10th grade. I only took art electives when given any choice. Mrs. Nohara my art teacher recommended that I take a ceramics class to round out my artistic skill set. I dont know what is was about clay but I took to it immediately, all I wanted to do was sculpt or throw pottery. I couldnt be bothered to do a single homework assignment, but I read ceramics monthlys, I found and watched instructional videos in BYU Hawaii's library, I spent many of my lunches in the ceramics room at Kahuku High School. I enjoyed clay so much that I had a hard time making myself draw. I started leaving my drawing class to go to the the ceramics room.  I barely picked up a pencil for the next 3 years.

When I went on a two year mission for my church, I had no access to clay, but instead of returning to drawing as a primary medium I used drawing to record ideas for sculptures I would make when I got home. Drawing had become by that point more of a means to an end rather than a pursuit in and of itself. My sketchbooks all through college reflect this shift to 3D, I rarely took the time to do a finished drawing, instead I used my sketchbooks to record ideas in shorthand scribbles just detailed enough to resurrect my thoughts.

It was not until I started teaching that I came back to drawing for drawing sake. The act of teaching drawing, doing demonstrations, and reading about drawing, rekindled my early love of drawing. When I got the chance to do this show, I knew that I would make a lot of the art this summer. Because I would be working at home a lot, and its hard to sculpt at home, (and not really healthy either,) As stated in an earlier post, I was thinking about doing a whole show of just drawings. However last week I got an idea that I wanted to sculpt. So I went up to my class room and started working. Once I got my hands into the clay I was like "oh yeah, how could I forget,  I really like sculpting". It satisfies me in a way that drawing cant. I cant even explain it, because the things I enjoy about sculpting are nonverbal, tactile, sensations, and emotional response.

So I am sculpting, and throwing and drawing. I did another strict observational drawing last week of a pear, and I thoroughly enjoyed the process. Maybe I am too weak and feeble minded. Maybe my work would be better if I had laser like focus and perfect follow through on my ideas , like doing a whole show of strict observational drawing. But the funny thing is the past week that I have been sculpting, I have been itching to work everyday. Its no longer something that I should do, its something I couldnt wait to do. I think Leslie could see that too. She has been very good about scheduling with me so that I get up to the classroom to work. I think my best art is born out of effort and passion and I was trying to get by on just effort.

On a different but related note, after years of wondering I have discovered how to find local clay. Gerry Theil a former art teacher and local artist, told me that its all over the place. He said to just look for cracked earth. I remembered seeing some cracked earth on a local farmers property. So I went back and literally collected some of his dirt. I soaked it in water, dried it carefully, and wedged it (like bread kneading), and holy smokes its clay, right from the ground. I always knew that clay was just a certain kind of dirt but this was still astonishing to me. Its like a gamer finding out he can grow an xbox for free in his garden. I had this lump of dirt and It felt like the clay wanted to be a baby sculpture. Seeds, plants, trees, roots, and babies are definitely recurring motifs with me, and it just seemed appropriate to make this connection between the earth, and birth, germination and rejuvenation. It says in the Bible that Adam was made from the dust of the earth, and the Book of Mormon talks about the body as a tabernacle of clay. Making sculpture with earth is reminiscent of genisis where the inanimate earth is imbued with life, and I thought a sculpture of baby curled up like a seed waiting to sprout captured that idea. So I will post some pictures soon of sculpture made from local clay.

I also want to post something about art in general what I like and dont like. I have definite opinions about what I like,and dont like but I acknowledge and respect the opinions of others who completely disagree with me. I am thinking I want to explore a little what strikes a chord with me and why.

Two Trees and a very large woman

These are two of the drawings that I was working on this week. The tree comming out of an egg doesnt have a specific meaning, its just about genesis, how unexpected things happen. I wasnt liking the bottom drawing, then Leslie said she liked it and I thought oh yeah well I guess I can see that. Do I have enough integrity, (or a large enough ego,) to be an artist? I do like the simplicity of it.

I went to the Denver Art Museum with my online art appreciation class saturday and fell in love with a 15 foot woman. Its a sculpture named Mud Woman Rolls on by Roxanne Swentzell. Its a woman with three children constructed using straw and earthen plaster. its very much like the process of building a straw bale house. Her mother was an architect. If I had stayed in the Architecture program at CU I think that I would have gravitated toward adobe and related building processes. Its basically sculpture that you live in.  I have been researching the techniques she used because being a man, the idea of making really large statues appeals to me. Any way Roxanne rocks and I love her sculpture. I may be creating some bas relief sculptures of my own based on these techniques. here is a link to a you time lapse video of her making the sculpture.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VZu3tbmfMQ&feature=related

Inside Out

     

\ 

Well so far things are going slower than I'd like, but I guess there is a reason that they say "you cant rush art".  Art is that 100 year old guy doing 35 on the freeway, 35 is fast enough, and by golly honk all you want, thats as fast as he's a gonna go. Anyway I have been drawing between 1 and 3 hours a day. Its hard to draw as much as I would like, but I cant lock myself away during the day, there are kids who need Cocoa Puffs, baseball games to watch, and bathrooms to clean. Besides Its summer, and as much as I love making art, It is more important to spend time with my family.

 I could wake up earlier to draw more, but the problem is that I am physically and mentally unable to draw when I am tired, or draw well anyway. Some things you can push through, others demand a kind of mental focus only available to well rested, and for me drawing is one of them. In college, my creative writting got more creative on the edge of unconsciousness, my math ability quickly devolved to the point I couldnt count my fingers. So I have been working around each days schedule. I find time to draw here and there, while the kids are at summer programs, I sketch trees at the park while Simon plays baseball. I get the most work done once the kids are asleep,  but even then I like spend some evenings with Leslie. So even in the summer when I have "nothing" to do, its still hard to find time to draw, but in a good way.

 I am arguing with myself about how to approach art. I am by no means an absolutist. But I have been trying to stick to general approach and philosophy. I said in an earlier post I am tired of creativity and overthought, underdone art. I have been drawing from observation for the past month. When you draw from observation you just have to pick something intersting and using a well defined skill set capture what you see on paper. I am attracted to the simplicity of the process and the lack of a need to write long explanations of why you did what you did. A well done observational drawing "speaks" for itself and in my opinion its worth is self evident.

Part of the reason that I dont like the term "creativity" is that many people equate creativity with no rules, or breaking the rules. To me there is no value in this kind of creativity. Breaking rules is easy and the results are usually underwhelming. I dont like Jackson Pollock. I know he is a pillar of contemporary art, but all  he did was drip paint; No rules, no discipline, extremely "creative".  You dont need any training to paint like Jackson Pollock because there are no rules to learn, no knowledge that needs to be aquirred, and no skills that need to be mastered. In my opinion there is not much difference between one Pollock painting and another.

My observational drawing was a sort of rebellion against this brand of creativity through anarchy. I want discipline, rules and boundries. I think true creativity is just what the term implies to create. To make something intentionally. To use the rules to convey an idea on purpose. This doesnt mean that all art has to be realistic, and look like a Rembrant. But I think the best art reflects knowledge of the world and how to communicate; what colors make a particular skin tone, what arrangement of lines will attract the eye, what shape of the eye will convey anger. I wanted my art to demonstrate what I know about drawing realistically. No tricks, no long statements explaining my philosopy (like the one I am currently writting), just drawing from life.

This summer I have drawn a bamboo plant, simons boots, a pineapple and eggshells. Drawing from observation is a good mental workout. To do it right takes tremendous mental discipline. Keeping things in the right places, the right sizes and capturing all the relevant detail is a lot of work. So far I havent liked my results. I am not as good as I want to be. I have spent so much energy capturing all the details that the work as a whole has suffered. It is a fools game to try to capture every detail, The better you get the more frustrated you will become, because you will always see more details to record. I have been reminded of something that I constantly I tell my students, "simplify", "the life of a drawing is not in the details, it's in the structure." The big relationships. Two of my favorite artists, Chuck Close, and George Seurat, best work is great because of its lack of detail. Chuck Close, does paintings that literally have no details. The whole painting consist of abstact non specific shapes yet these shapes are held together by a grid structure which orders the meaningless shapes into stunning likenesses of real people. To me it is the tension between the ordering structure and the random meaningless elements that makes his paintings so interesting. I was forgot this durring my observational drawing sessions. I drew every leaf of that bamboo plant and every section of that pineapple, and as satisfying as it was to conquer the technichal challenge, the drawing and the drawing process lacked life. I could hear Big Z from "Surfs Up" say , "no joy".
 
I didnt know whether I should simply push on through or try a different approach. I was disturbed, I went downstairs one morning and I did the drawing of the tree comming out of the bean without any reference images, it was all from my head. Working from my head I felt freer to work on the composition. I was able to relax and just enjoy the process of drawing. And most telling of all I think that the tree is much more interesting piece than the others. It was the first time in this summer I felt like I was making "Art". Regardless of whether it fits with my philosophy I could plainly see that the drawing was better than my straight forward drawings from life. So what do I do now?

Am I selling out and taking the easy path? If I simply worked harder on my observational drawing would it beging to take on more life (probably). I think like most things in life I need to avoid dogmatic thinking. Instead of approaching art as if I already know the answer I am experimenting, learning what works and figuring out why. There is value in observational drawing and undoubtably my experience drawing trees from observation informed my informal drawing session. But there is also more to art than simple copying, I am learning that for me it doesnt feel like I am making "Art" untill the image comes from inside not outside. Maybe as I work through this I will learn a more useful definition of creativity.

Trees

Here are some sketches of what I am working on. I have been drawing a lot of trees. These pictures are drawn in my sketchbook from live trees.  I have always been partial to trees, I love the twisting,and twining of their branches. I enjoy the spaces dancing between the branches. I admire the quiet majesty of  a tall tree, a simple self confidence. I would like to be as steady as a tree, firmly grounded, waving at the wandering clouds without envy. I digress... anyway I want to do some charcoal drawings heightening the tonal contrasts similar to Seurat's sketch "Seated Boy". His handling of contrast in his drawings is exquisite, somehow it gets lost in his paintings. I will post some examples when they are complete.

A New Era

Well, I started this blog two years ago or so, with the intention of documenting a the my time in graduate school and recording the thoughts I had, and artwork I made along the way. I got my diploma last week, and I realized that chapter had ended. My blog suddenly was without a purpose. I cleared it out and and I have been pondering what to do next. Now I know, and so I am beginning a new chapter.
I help out with a committee called CACE which promotes arts and cultural events in the area. The committee selects artists to display work in a gallery space in downtown Fort Morgan. I have been asked to put on a show. It will open on January 18, 2013. I am planning on creating 20 to 30 original works between now and then. This blog will document my thoughts, ideas, process and preparation for the show.
This is my first solo show ever and I want to do it right. So much so that I have been overthinking what I will include in the show. I think a lot of contemporary art is overthought and underdone. I am a little tired of creativity. The word is overused. Many artists spend so much time being orginal that they rarely take the time to do it well. I dont want to outsmart myself or overthink what art is, I want to dedicate myself to really honing my skills and taking the time to do it to the best of my ability. I plan to spend at least 3 hours a day drawing from observation. I will work primarily in charcoal, and I will focus on accurate drawings, with a strong sense of form and light. So this is my mission, in a way I intend it to be like performance art, as I fully intend to document the effect of concentrated daily effort to produce my best work, as part of the show. So this blogs purpose now officially matches its name, check in from time to time to see how its going.