12.20.2016

body of evidence by karin sanborn



Last Friday evening I had the pleasure of seeing a new group show in Boston that goes by the title APATHIEMy post this month focuses on Jennifer Murphy's installation work here. She is both an exhibitor and champion behind the project.

Some art sticks like glue once met, or maybe, could it just be new air, floating around something significant that was allowed through an open door?  Peripheral to the entrance I encountered what feels like a complex breeze. I hear its whispering notes, a contemporary Song of Hiawatha. Murphy weaves threads from a void into matter. Like an apparition, there are pieces left to witness, but not an entire form.

This beauty realized is a drink from the melancholy wine of remembrance. The artist's own hair adorns the main gauzy element and the walls of this tomb. Intimate feminine objects are frayed like the threads barely holding things together, yet they carry no stain of life force. These materials speak directly to me and to my own relationship to animal bones and hide. This kind of practice suggests an archaeology in the spirit of Love After Death.

Many days later, this encounter still sits beside me, accompanying, materializing in those empty spaces of ether that circulate around singular experiences: the morning cup of tea being drunk, a piece of toast masticated. Murphy's visual poetry hovers, follows, and sits like a spectre. I am not alone. My friend, the sound of silence sits with me, dulling the incessant din outside with its open maw. It commands my attention and I readily give it.

The show's title suggests lack of interest and emotion. The work presented is a stark contradiction to that concept when placed alongside the evidence presented. The construction of Apathie's disinterested, honest skeleton-dancing together with a spirit of loss and reverence in the highest order-is what Feminism is all about... if you ask me. Tell it like it is, tell us how you feel. Bravo.





12.06.2016

Unpredictable Fun by Andrea Zimon

My adventures in clay continue. Ceramic glazing is new to me and hence unpredictable and fun.

Usually.

Unless I am chiseling something from a kiln shelf then glaze on a doughnut has more appeal.



Clay work 'Sky'. The colors were a happy accident as I did not know what would happen. Weak technique requires my gluing the ear back on but I am happy with it.  The piece itself is the result of two pinch pots, two miniature pinch pots for the ears, and carving out the rest. 



Clay work, 'Machine Coil 1'.  Machine coil is produced by a very large extruder - think spaghetti maker.  I am happy with the shape even though it is simple but I would like to learn how to better control the glaze. I definitely painted outside the lines!


 When my second machine coil piece was brought to me and I thought it so bad that I flinched because it was so ugly compared to the intended vision of blue, green, and dark red composition that I had in my head.

  In our class, we all want our work to survive the kiln which can be a crap shoot. This piece was a bucket dipped as opposed to hand painted. I thought I mixed the paint well. I thought I dipped the piece well. I guess I was too enthusiastic with the dipping. My instructor made it look so easy. 

After inspecting it with a sigh, I then set to chiseling it off the shelf. The piece suffered a little. The shelf suffered a lot. As a result, I have a date with the grinder to remove the sharp points of the bottom of the piece.  



Despite uneven glazing, air bubbles, and bare spots, there are interesting parts in the mixing of the blue and green glazes. Even the yellow I thought was going to be red works. I have a lot to learn but you don't learn until you take the first step. 



My wrapped slab creation of weirdness which needs to dry and then be fired.  Lace gives it texture.


My canopic jar of Duametef. An assignment I dreaded but actually resulted pretty well.  I have fired the base successfully and crossing my fingers for the head's firing. I reinforced the ears this time which should prevent breakage.  It is supposed to be a jackal but it looks like a greyhound. 


I continue to love clay and determined to master glazing. 
Although the term 'master' might be loosely defined. 

11.15.2016

mud and real beauty by karin sanborn

Hello friends and thank you for tuning in to our program. This month I wish to celebrate another artist in the world. Her name is Nancy, she writes the GatorGirlBlog, and she is from New Orleans-Louisiana, USA. Let me explain the connection.

I've been welding and grinding metal like a fiend in the driveway for the past 48 hours. Meanwhile there is this delicate Venus/fertility sculpture in the house studio that isn't getting any airtime because I'm unsure what to do with it next. I can make it serious or do what I really want, which is to give it an alligator tail. This blog post isn't about me today so I ask you to use your imagination instead to visualize this scenario. Think of the Venus de Milo as a reptile and we are on the same page.

If any creative process is going to actually work it can't have sense and rules like accounting. It has to color outside the lines. For some, just a little outside is just the right amount. For me, it's essential to color in another galaxy. Typically I have no problem with this concept. The fact that I hesitated at all on this piece is a red flag to pay attention to. Reminder to self: lighten the 'f' up. To help stay on the right track I decided to buy something that celebrates my love of planet nonsense. It is my most favorite place in the universe. The purchase also supports another artist which I dig. In a perfect world I would be as successful as Andy Warhol and be a patron to all kinds of artists, musicians, etc. To be Atlas to the creative world would be an honor.

Thank you Nancy Wolfe Kimberly of GatorGirlArt for putting your art out there on the internet.
I can't wait for my Alligator Ballerina. It makes me feel like a star.







11.03.2016

Learning Curve by Andrea Zimon

I love my pottery class. 
I am far from a master potter. 
I am far from calling myself a potter. 
 I remain true to my calling as an artist by continually practicing and experimenting in this new realm.

The journey so far.....

Organic coil with watered down glaze. It was an experiment. More trials to be performed. 

The grand review of pinch pots.


I was told to make a footed pinch pot. I took it literally. How about a tail, too?



Still figuring out the art of finishing on this carved pinch pot. Nasty clay boogers in the grooves.
  
Pinch pot with a handle. 
Top view of the handle. 
Pinch pot with a cover. I meant to be weird with the glaze colors.
My teacher remarked that I was all over the place with my color selections. I plan everything in my life except my glaze colors. Sadly, the cover got a chip in the glaze which is one of the hazards of pottery. 

One more organic coil with watered down glaze. I carefully painted each ball with glaze except one on this piece.
I was going to say that represents some thing deep and meaningful. In reality, I forgot to paint it.

Soon you will see my adventures with machine coil. 







10.19.2016

life on the island by karin sanborn


I am hard at work on acquiring the next rejection letter for my files. I pursue things which add value to my development. I decided to retry for a competition I've been rejected from for years. One more time won't hurt. There is a lot to be gained from being a printed publication that reaches all of New England. Nothing happens without showing up each day to try. I am spending my valuable time AND money to keep trying. Every effort adds breath into this new life. One day I will defy gravity. Mark these words.

The work I chose to submit seemed trivial, just an exercise with no purpose. I ripped long strips of rice paper. I made marks with my left hand; dragging sticks and Hockamock swamp reed ends dipped in ink all over the paper. I threw the ink too. That always feels great. Recently someone said it all looked like dirty paper towels which was not exactly a compliment. So what. I loved making it and it is mine. I took it to the photographer's studio and stood it on its head because I had no idea how to present any of it. I stopped caring and just made it playtime. No one was going to die if this creation wasn't going to be the next Mona Lisa. I am not going to say rejection and disappointment doesn't exist because of this new attitude. It is just that that sort of thinking only tears down the fragility of this invisible thing I love and I won't do it. I just whisper it's ok, you are good enough for me. We all grew up in the same galaxy where you are either an outsider or 'in the club' with the popular kids. I can be a queen on the island of misfits and can also be proud of it. Come all ye spotted pachyderms and jelly-stained faces. We belong. We will built a boat and save ourselves.

The saying that art holds a mirror up to life is about looking from the outside in, not from inside the eye, looking out which is lizard brain activity. Most of us stumble in the dark, blind, and accompanied only by our reptilian cave reactions which often lead us repeatedly to the same pointless circles. But fumbling without light is good work. Time, money, and energy flushed down life's drain and wiped up with dirty paper towels are all important steps in living and learning until something starts to shine light back.  If you can see as a mirror does, excellent job on your part. Please go into teaching, the world needs you.

In Language Is A Virus, Laurie Anderson sings 'Paradise is exactly where you are right now, only much, much better'. I think she was suggesting to stay put and just look at everything another way.

rising and falling
spirited away


cradling
out there






10.04.2016

Clay Bits and Digital Pieces by Andrea Zimon


Eine Kleine Nacthmusik
'Lainey'

When I made pottery as a child in school, I cannot remember why I didn't pursue it further. Maybe because it wasn't practical for me at the time. It was messy, it needed time, and  it required a kiln. These elements were not within the boundaries of my childhood. 

Two years ago, I took a pottery workshop and enjoyed it but the same reasons applied as above.

Here yet again, I am in a ceramics class except now things are different. I can make messes in my house because I have my own art space.  I can take my pieces home to work on them when I want so I have the time. And since I am in a class I have access to a kiln. 

So why the picture of the horse? Simply because the blog picture leads the article and I wanted something with a punch of color other than my grey pinch pots. Lainey stood nicely enough in the paddock for me take her picture.  I then started to digitally alter her.  She normally doesn't have geranium on her side. 







9.27.2016

When the World Seems Crazy Make Baskets by Sarah Feragen


 Hello All,

I've had a very full summer. A couple of trips with family followed by celebrations , special events, and parties. This hiatus from my work has created a new perspective. I took down my wall of plant work from DW. Field. It was time to shake the etch- o- sketch and start fresh. Sometimes our own work can become oppressive if we think we have to continue in a certain way.

I started to veiw these simple crocheted baskets as color expressions.Then I pulled out my stash of old fabrics and began to match combinations that felt lighter and brighter. I added embellishments ( as it struck my fancy) to further enhance a feeling of delight. I sense this is developing towards a dioramma type expression but I'm not sure how that is going to work. The form, the meeting of sculpture and painting seems inenvitable, I just don't want to push the process. It turns out better when it flows through  the doing.

                                                             
 I'm searching for that feeling of discovery,
like the image was there                                                                   all along.

I keep eyeing my husband's Hawaiian Shirts because I love the colors but he won't give them up no matter how many holes there are and how far into fall we are. Do you think he'll miss just one?

Love,
Sarah




9.14.2016

one love by karin sanborn

Research is a fascinating undertaking. I never expected an academic pursuit to have the  impact of a physical event, but it has. Something part of me is changing shape, growing, getting more elastic. For the last 9 months one name from the annals of recent contemporary art history refused to leave me alone. Peers & teachers alike continually made suggestions to dig deeper into this one artist. Her name was Ana Mendieta.

In the beginning, I had preconceived notions about the artist along with a sense of complete alienation when looking at the work. With a ready surplus of elaborate justifications a mental barricade went up against the need to look further into this legacy. What a joke. Studying teaches me one thing if nothing else; learning is no fun without an open mind. Ana Mendieta's shadow has been holding a silent vigil on the exterior of my locked house, waiting for the occupant to exit. Just today I decided to go outside and  make peace with this stalker.

One doesn't have to personally admire or be like someone else to share in a common root. To court the earth in a direct relationship to the body as a sculptural medium is both awesome and humbling. Behold the macro and the micro together here.There is empowerment in an unspoken feminine commonality where the two components meet. With that understood, the imagination is free to roam the universe unimpeded by polar judgments. This takes me to the same place where the Hubble spacecraft is out exploring unknown images that may one day provide more inside into what our existence is all about. Until then, it is a spectacular ride. Thank you Ana Mendieta for hanging around so I could hear this thought of my own reflected back through your eyes.

Mendieta stated:
My art is grounded in the belief of one universal energy that runs through everything: from insect to man, from man to spectre, from spectre to plant, from plant to galaxy.
My works are irrigation veins of this universal fluid. Through them ascend the ancestral sap, the original beliefs, the primordial accumulations, the unconscious thoughts that animate the world. [1]

The timing of this post coincides with an outdoor activity facilitated by me during the MMAS 2016 Arts & Music Festival. Click on the mud tree for this earth art event information.


[1] Mendieta, Ana. ‘A Selection of Statements and Notes’, Sulfur, vol. 22, 1988, 70

9.08.2016

Ghost by Andrea Zimon

One day I looked over my shoulder and I saw a ghost. 

Sort of.

Where I create my art there are a lot of glass surfaces.  It is also a large room.  My
sculpture is located at one end of the room and I was sitting at the other end which is when I snapped this picture.

When I spotted this, I was intrigued with image and how it got there. 
And I was amused that it became a ghostly ARTifact.

8.30.2016

Of Decay by Andrea Zimon

I have been writing intensely for the past couple of weeks.  The subject I am working on is uninspiring but I must do it none-the-less. As a result, I have writer's block.

Sometimes drawing helps me to hear more clearly what my brain wants to say. 
I don't necessarily want to go my studio. Then the 'help' becomes procrastination. 

So I draw usually on the back of an envelope. 
Occasionally 'art stuff' will end up on the office desk, 
like these remnant sequins from another project.

I decided to make a temporary collage with the sequins and the drawing. 

'Of Decay' are the only full words on the paper together hence the title which is the best I can do under the circumstances. 






8.23.2016

Craft Paint by Andrea Zimon


I think I really re-found my artistic joie de vivre as a result of an emotional response.

My grandmother had passed and I was allowed to take from her house whatever was important to me. Among many things I took was a collection of craft paint.

Prior to my grandmother’s passing, I was not using craft paint or much else as I had been stagnating artistically. But in going through my grandmother’s art supplies I realized she had been stuck, too – fearful of not making something beautiful or correct. She had bought a bunch of things in preparation to create that perfect piece of art which sadly didn’t happen.

I realized that to best honor her and myself was to start creating and stop worrying about the final product. In doing so, I was also able to process her loss. 

The craft paint stumped me at first as with what to do with it as a paper artist. At that time I probably would have been inept with finger paint, too. Then upon advice given to me by a book by L.K. Ludwig, I started painting with it using a credit card to spread it on a paper surface.

Using a so-so watercolor as a base and I started dragging the color around with the card. Most of the craft paint on this work was not applied using a paint brush.  At the time, I still didn’t like it even with the craft paint but now I find the piece interesting. It serves a reminder to just to produce and follows the theme of Karin’s recent post.

My grandmother’s passing was sad but it had a silver lining because it made me realize that I needed to create art and to not be stuck to in my own rigid rules and play

 or per Sol Lewitt :

“Do!”



8.10.2016

coach by karin sanborn

I'm struggling in my artwork. It's well past performing technical exercises and image rendering.
Now is when it has to become elevated to art or it stays stuck. This sounds abstract because it is.

If Sol Lewitt and Eva Hesse had this problem it should be no surprise that I do too.
In the letter below, Sol eloquently describes the requirements at this stage of development.
The gist is get over yourself and get on with it.

I do have to get back to making my uncool. There isn't much choice.

Click here for the electronic transcription





8.09.2016

Gone Fishing by Andrea Zimon

Fishing seems like an appropriate theme for summer.
 I don't fish but here are some watercolors in keeping with the theme. 


 









8.02.2016

Never To Old For Play , Sarah K. Feragen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atn22-bmTPU

Hello Everyone,

I recently enjoyed this youtube TED Talk by Paula Scher ( click on the link at the top of the page). The title, " Great Design is Serious (not Solemn)."
It's a little long (22 minutes) but the issue of challenging yourself to learn new materials or techniques as a way of funding your imagination is thoughly explored. She also discusses the downside of developing a style by which you are known, only to become stuck by its repetition and the excitement disappears. Ms. Scher points out that when an artist moves into unchartered visual territory, an "on the fly" learning takes place.
This is fun. I think this playfulness is comunnicated to an audience then creating additional excitement. This is why I have a studio filled with "experiments".
Here are couple of those images from my lab, more fabric covered wire baskets.



The poem on this art work is the following:

Flotsam
Churning forgotten bits,
transform into lovely islands.
Archaic refuse revealed,
inviting us to remember
childhood's muses.
Time holds no compassion
 for the real or the faux.
Our reverent footsteps
returned to the mecurial winds.
The mind's silence bid the ocean
peace.



Here is an update on my forest in a box. Maybe it needs a poem.
The last bit is a link to a favorite visual magazine which I hope  will have lots of inspirational ideas.

www.thisiscolossal.com

Sincerely,

Sarah K. Feragen

7.26.2016

Superstar by Andrea Zimon

I remember watching the movie, Addam's Family Values. Towards the end, the antagonist rationalizes  her psychotic leanings by stating that her parents got her Malibu Barbie instead of Ballerina Barbie which so she so desperately wanted.

 This line was amusing to me (among others) because I remember a rather profound discussion with my cousin validating the merits of Malibu, Ballerina, and Superstar Barbie. We decided that as she could wear anything Malibu Barbie was a keeper. Ballerina Barbie was worthy of our collection as she could twirl. However, Superstar Barbie had issues, particularly with the arms. We just didn't think the bent arms were realistic (eyes rolling here). Plus, we decided that those bent arms were a hindrance in speedy dress changes. After all, what good is Barbie without her wardrobe? For the record, I was the one with Malibu Barbie and my cousin had Ballerina Barbie so we were definitely biased. To the best of my knowledge,  Barbie was not responsible for any my childhood trauma but my parents did not buy me a pony which probably led to all sort of other problems.




This artwork was supposed to be a meaningful piece interpreting that special bond between woman and horse. Then it went rogue. I liked that horse but not its placement .Then the figure took on the form of the discussed Superstar Barbie and I decide to scrap 'meaningful' and embraced the superstar theme.  

7.19.2016

stories by karin sanborn

Mrs. Lavery was a kindergarten teacher extraordinaire.
One of her art lessons is alive and well nearly a 1/2 century later. I use it all the time. It is my favorite exercise.

Receive a scribble,  3D object, or sound 'image' from someone without any prior plan other than to make up something from nothing. What becomes when the artist or viewer is challenged to create a visual story with no rules?

This brings us to this week's exercise of making your own narrative from some unexpected images.
Titles withheld for obvious reasons. Happy imagining.