Sunday, October 31, 2010

More Open Studio Pics

Running through the floors, seeing connections, snapping a picture of the name on the door and the stuff inside:










Wednesday, October 27, 2010

The Blogging intern: Makes new art and explores Image Library




my work area in Austin's studio

For the past few days, I have been exploring what my next step is in terms of my own artwork. (Inspiration wall pictured above). I don't want to over categorize my artworking at this point. I am learning and experimenting.

I have been going to the Image Collection at the Public Library, and pulling images I believe define different parts of my life and I think I am inspired by. Some of the categories include; "Indian Life," "Mexican Life," "French Design of the 1800's," and "Connecticut."

Although I am drawn to certain images because they are already familiar to me, my choices from the Image Collection are also of images that my family and friends might be interested in, for I am influenced by their interests. For instance my dad loves Mexico and is a chef and owns a Mexican restaurant called Tequila Mockingbird in New Canaan, Connecticut. Therefore my interested in Mexico because he is interested in Mexico.

So for my next art step forward I have decided to make portraits of all those who have influenced me over my twenty years of being alive. Within each of portrait, I will reference what they themselves have had a passion for and which they have passed onto me.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

The Elizabeth Foundation

This will be the first of several posts on the artists at the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts. During open studio weekend, I went to every studio, snapped a picture and moved on. There are artists that do monumental sculpture and there is an artist that paints the moon and there's everything in between. It's an incredibly diverse place and I hope to write about some of the intersections of art making I saw and describe the ebbs and flows of this incredibly rich Manhattan studio building.

Starting at the the top, here are a few pics from the 9th floor:

Thursday, October 21, 2010

The Blogging Intern goes to the Frick, the Whitney, and the Guggenheim






Yesterday I made a trip to the upper eastside to three museums I had never been to before: the Frick, the Whitney and the Guggenheim. It was a day filled with looking at different types of amazing art!

The Frick is like a sanctuary of beautifully done classical pieces, with art of the Rococo period, romantic english landscapes, religious painting and so much more, especially the Spanish Manner show that is up now displaying drawings from Ribera to Goya. The Spanish Manner exhibit was astonishing, from Jusepe de Ribera’s Head in Profile drawing showing his amazing ability to cross hatch to the point were it looks like fluid tone to Francisco Goya’s loosely drawn ink and water pieces where character and action are distinguished in tones.

The rest of the Frick continued to blow my mind, although when everything I am looking at is amazing, nothing could blow my mind more than seeing my favorite painting highlighted at the very end of all the rooms. My favorite painting being, John Constable’s Salisbury Cathedral, and it usually lives at the MET.

At The Whitney they had The Collecting Biennial Show, were they had pieces from their own collection. This show contained art from the 1950’s through the 1980’s. There was some pretty unique art within the show, from David Hammons, Untitled piece with consists of hair, stone and wire, to Duane Hanson’s Women with Dog. Hammons’s piece at first looks like it might attack you, but then you get up close and realize what it is; hair covered wire, made to imitate dreads. While Hanson’s piece of the women next to the dog, is so incredibly realistic, it is also frightening. I was sure she was going to come to life even if she was made of fiberglass.

Also at the Whitney, Lee Friedlander's America by Car photography show. Friedlander went through all the states taking photo's out his car window at the review mirror and the front windshield. The show is set up with two rows of pictures along the wall and each column of the the two photographs interact or have similarities. It is interesting because each picture is from a different location in America. America isn't all that different from one place to another.

The Guggenheim was my last stop, and I must go back, considering I did not see everything. Nevertheless, what I did see was fabulous, I was particularly fond of Otto Dix's etchings. There was one etching called Skull, which had things coming out of the eyes and mouth. I like looking at heads, in reality we can all relate to heads because we all have one.

Saturday, October 16, 2010

The Blogging intern goes to the MET.

Technology and Intricate Details.




The other day I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, to see some of the special exhibits. I saw The Man, Myth, and Sensual Pleasures, Jan Gossart’s Renaissance, Between Here and There: Contemporary photos and film, and Hipsters, Hustlers, Handball Players by Leon Levinstein, and southern Asian Art from India.

Gossart’s work was amazing. His work is incredibly detailed, from the outfits in the paintings, prints, and drawings to his surroundings. I wish in today’s world our attention to detail would be equivalent to Gossart’s artwork.

Our world may not be made up of many intricate marks and colorful details, but we have advanced new technologies that have advanced the way we make art.

Both shows Between Here and There: Contemporary Photos and Hipsters, Hustlers, and Handball Players by Levinstein, deal with the use of cameras. Between Here and There shows photos and film starting from the mid-60’s till today. The work deals with contemporary art concepts more so than actually people, like Gossart’s work.

Levinstein’s work was about documenting spontaneous people’s lives around the city in different neighborhoods with his camera. His work ranged from the 1950’s to the 80’s. It was a time when not everyone had a camera, unlike today, so walking around documenting the regulars of New York was a crazy idea.

I took a good look at all the southern Asia Art, mostly Indian Iconic Figures or Hindu deities, such as Ganesha, Vishnu, and Shiva. In high school for part of a summer, I went to India. I was mostly in Mysore, with the Putney Student Program. I love all the details of all the God Icons, considering they are everywhere from the rickshaw (the taxi’s) to the temples. It was really cool to go to the MET and be reminded of all the stories behind each icon and what they bring to the Hindu religion, as well as see the amazing detail that each individual God contains.

Open Studio at the Elizabeth Foundation

my side
Maddie's side
Maddie's dog

Maddie, aka "the Blogging Intern," and I are here for Open Studio 2010/EFA! She has her side and I have mine, artists working side by side!


Tuesday, October 12, 2010

The blogging intern: At EFA Project Space

Short-Term Deviation


Last Thursday I went to the Short- Term Deviation show in the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts in the Project Space on the second floor. They were having a performance among all the art on Thursday night. The idea was great, the intertwining of art and every day activities. The band was not my style, although it was interesting to see how they set up their equipment on top of a newsprint artwork that had been pasted on the floor.

The newsprint on the floor reminded me of walking around the city where boxes with ads, coupons and magazines align the subway stations and street corners. Pictured above Catharine Ahearn, the artist who created the Newsprint ads on the floor in the Project Space makes the paper beautiful, like a tile or mosaic.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

10/10/10!

Today being 10/10/10, I had to do a little round up for we've been busy drawing on the utopic. Yesterday, although I did not attend, I did listen to Creative Time's Summit: REVOLUTIONS IN PUBLIC PRACTICE. I found it thought provoking and inspiring. It is possible to join in and listen and review previous discussions are on their event site site.

Last night I began installing a mixed media sculpture, titled "Be Nice to Everybody," at a wonderful little space in Harlem called Azucarera. The show is being curated by Jenny Burgos and features work by Livia Corona and Shelton Walsmith.

I snapped a few pictures last night of the installation and I will snap and write more as the show comes together This is Jenny's curatorial debut. I LOVE Azucarer'a statement of purpose; AZUCARERA is an artist run gallery in the historic Sugar Hill neighborhood in Harlem, NYC. Exhibits at AZUCARERA emphasize the creative work of new and emerging artists who identify as women of color, indigenous, LGBTQ/Two Spirit, working class, and/or feminist, as well as allies. AZUCARERA is a transnational, multigenerational space that recognizes and celebrates the artistic work that energizes and sustains our diverse communities.

The space is run by Nova Gutierrez, a Chicana artist originally from South Texas, opened AZUCARERA in June 2009. She has lived and worked in NYC as an artist and educator since 1994. Hamilton Heights (West Harlem) has been her home for over 10 years.

Jenny, the curator, prepping the space, Nova, gallery director in the background, inspecting the wall.


Kenneth Browne's paintings from the previous show, he was just profiled in an article by Hrag Vartanian on his and hubby Veken
Veken Gueyikian's Hyperallergic.

2 of my mini models top and bottom


and Shelton Walsmith painting before installation.

Happy birthday Grant!

Thursday, October 7, 2010

The blogging intern is back!


Getting back in the swing of things...

I am back from being in the hospital for a regular stay where I received some IV antibiotic treatments. It is regular for me, considering I have Cystic Fibrosis. I had tried many different antibiotics by mouth, the only other way I can get better is with great airway clearance treatments and IV antibiotic therapy.

So now that is over and done with, I have been back in the printmaking studio, finishing up a an etching project. I will have some new art which you can take a peek at during the open studio of EFA, which is from October 14th – 16th.

Austin, me, and the 70 other artists in this building will have artwork up.

Yesterday, I went to about 14 galleries in Chelsea and saw some amazing art:



Dan Colen
, Chewing gum on canvas, here he in front of his piece which is at the

Inventions, sculptures, performances, small moments





Last week I had the honor of teaching alongside William Powhida ("MR. POWHIDA" if you are in his high school art class). Mr. Powhida has been instructing his students to make sketchbooks, use stencils, examine pattern, and draw in a silent, reflective, all over way.

I brought all my rulers to his class along with my favorite pencils, graph paper and thoughts on using drawing as a way to connect with the inner psyche and to allow for accidents. I told the students that I manipulate my straight edges so that they are crooked because "life is not a straight line." (This is a main tenant of my artistic belief system.) (I also believe that other artists should buy other artist's work but that lecture was given to another class taught be William Powhida with Jen Dalton!)

After I left the class in the skilled hands of Powhida, he was kind of enough to send me some feedback from my day of sketch-booking lessons. One student commented that "she made feel like I was making art." The students further discussed "life isn't a straight line," which Powhida felt was a good point of departure for his students. His students are currently making a collage a day. I'm looking forward to seeing what these high school artists came up.

After school, it was off to MoMA for the opening of the AB Ex show, amazingly reviewed by Roberta Smith. Pictures below from walking through the exhibit with art aficionado and viewing pal. Thanks Lyn and thanks Jason for getting me into the place!