What I've Been Working On

“The Sands”
10x11 ¾”
Collage on paper bag.

“Blood and Water” 2009
32x64”
Oil and chalk snap line on raw vinyl.

“facing a certain future” 2009
9x12”
Collage on Hallmark bag.

“In Exile” 2009
16x20
Collage on graph paper

“The Great Escape” 2009
18x22”
Collage on craft paper.

“I AM” (I) 2009
18x22”
Pen and graphite on paper

"Out of The Silent Planet" I
18x22"
graphite on craft paper

"Out of The Silent Planet" II
18x22"
graphite on craft paper

"Out of The Silent Planet" III
18x22"
graphite on craft paper

"Out of The Silent Planet" IV
18x22"
graphite on craft paper

"Out of The Silent Planet" V
18x22"
graphite on craft paper

It Is Near
18x22"
graphite and charcoal on craft paper

Amendment I (Or Science Must Not Touch Religion)
18x22
graphite and charcoal on craft paper

“Out Of The Water” 2009
72x72”
Oil on raw canvas

“Won’t be the same” 2009
11x11”
Collage on box lid.

Here are the images I said I would be putting up. This is the work accumulating in my studio; what I've been working at, and there is more to be added to this. However, It Is Near, and Amendment I, are from the last spring, and are not apart of this body of work--I just thought I would put them up because they are relevant.

Also, I have formulated another sort of artists statement about this body of work, and it gives a little insight into what I'm keeping in mind as I work:

My abstract work is very much about the formal as it is the spiritual and emotional. In my work, I deal with symbolism through the means of minimal abstraction as a way to represent larger concepts in a simple way. In some cases the pieces are more of an embodiment of a concept or ideal, and in other cases, they stand to represent something more narrative. I agree with Kandinsky, in the sense that I too feel that there is an initial, physical, and optical reaction to an image that takes place in the eye, but that it may also go further to touch on another level of a being: the emotional and spiritual level. I believe that the formal issues of art are perfect vehicles for the allegorical, and may further more even stand to supersede the work itself. I am in concordance with Barnett Newman, in the way in which he would want people to view and see his paintings: all at once and up close. In this mode of showing or viewing, one gets the picture more immediately, and the image is presented with a more straightforward depiction of a concept or idea. Though my work is somewhat “quick look”, I try to lend a meditative quality to the pieces, so to provoke a contemplation that would extend beyond the optical and formal reading alone.

Today, some friends/colleagues and I shot photos of some of our work, and for me, there were many things to shoot. I hope to get some of these images up within a day or so, and I will talk a little bit about them as well. We got some decent images, so I should have something worth showing.

Draft

Draft for an up coming painting.
(White pencil on graph paper)

So, here is a sketch for an up coming painting that I will most likely be starting within the next month. This is a painting that will be coexisting with two other paintings (one finished, that I mentioned in a previous entry , and another that will be in production after this one). Just to touch briefly on the concept behind this trio, I have been thinking about transition, as I have also mentioned, and baptism. In this case, I am more or less considering three things: an idea, and ideal, and the living truth of it all. This is still something I am trying to grapple with and refine, so I apologize for the vague and ambiguous explanation. None-the-less, I am moving forward with the project, and learning as I go along. With these, I am trying to reconfigure how I go about making, especially in terms of my painting. I still believe in having a plan, but I'm starting to take the approach of Barnett Newman, in that I would start a painting by simply painting. And whats more, is that in the process of affecting the canvas, in turn it would have an effect on me. Thank you Mr. Newman.

Not a moment to lose!

In the midst of all this talk of time, and it being my main subject as of late, something rather profound, yet ordinary had struck me. I had been thinking, as I was looking at some pictures of some people that I know, that are around my age, and thought: My God, one day I shall look back at times such as these when I am much older (if those days do come that is), and I shall say “look how young we all were then,” and how time had run such a game on us all. How we’d been tricked into thinking no time had past at all. That is, until we see the proof, and then we are taken through the loop, and we start to count the days, and even seconds perhaps, that we missed as it slipped out the back door, hardly letting a floorboard creek. And then we might even carry on to say how if it were only that way again, how much more we would have done and experienced, seized the moment, and made every second tamper and toil at that back door with the amount of locks and efforts put into containing them. And even still in this thought, I could almost awake as if from a dream, and take account of what took place in my mind and the actuality of my being: I am still young! To have thought of this made me think of what a gift it is to be at such a point in life. It helps one to think as to what they are doing about it as well, and to contemplate on the so very preciousness of each and every moment. There is not a moment to lose! Or perhaps it is quite the opposite, and that is what the saying suggests.

"I AM"
pen, graphite, water color, and gold acrylic on graph paper
7x7"

Joseph and Nicodemus
pen, graphite, stickers, and newspaper clipping on graph paper
7x7"

So these are the drawings I said I was going to post, and I hope to have more up soon to have proof of all this work I said I've been doing. Also, just as a note, there is some minor shmutz due to the surface of the scanner I used. I tried to remove as much as I could.