Open Studios

Tonight was refreshing. Redux Contemporary Art Center held an open studio event where I got a chance to see what was being made here in Charleston, and put some faces to some of it as well. It was nice to get out and be around paint that wasn’t house paint for a change (being that I have been working at Sherwin Williams since I moved here.) Redux is the only establishment in Charleston, that I know of, that runs such a program(s). Not only does Redux have gallery space and studio space, but it also facilitates art classes as well, and a hand full at that. From what I have been noticing in Charleston, there are “galleries” that have the expected beach-paintings and kitschy-home-gear, and then there is Redux and the Halsey, both facilitating to contemporary art and artists. I have been enjoying getting to know the people that run these places (very awesome, helpful, and friendly people), and have been volunteering and helping out when I can. It has been a great way to meet people, get plugged in, and make new friends. I look forward to getting to know them further, and maybe even getting some of my own work on a wall or two while I’m down here.

In The Works

Graphite and Scotch Tape

18x24

This is somewhat of a crummy image of a drawing I just started. I'm not sure that it's finished yet, and to be honest, I'm not quite sure where it's going. But, here it is.

Wheels Turning

For the past month or so my studio has been my room, and, as I mentioned before, I have been working on making my new room here in Charleston a little more homey. So I have finally painted my walls, and already, it is starting to feel more cozy. Obviously I won't be making very large paintings in here like I have done before, but I hope to be productive nonetheless. While continuing on my drawing project with Chole, I am trying to read/write and tumble over some ideas in my head for other works that are more specific, a bit larger, and more central to my thought process. I do have some new ideas, with some new materials, and I hope to start in some way in the near future. God willing, it will be underway soon, if my funds prove stable enough.

Lauren's Instillation

Last night I helped Lauren out with her instillation at the Tin Roof for a calender release/music show. I had been gathering cardboard boxes from work to give to her for this project, and I'd say the storing up was well worth it. The structures all ended up suiting the space really well, and though it was a new time frame and materials for Lauren, the work still looks very much like her own. It was a long day, and we busted our butts to get it done; but at the end of the day, we got the sadisfaction of completion, a pint of free beer, great food, good music, and instantainious sleep as soon as our heads it our pillows. To artmaking!

Check out the artists from last night: Here and Here.

I helped to install the work for the Redux 8th Annual Art Auction today at The Charleston Center For Photography. There was a lot of work, and it took nearly all day, but in the end it all looked well. It felt good to be hanging and doing gallery work again. I'm sure it will be a good turn out, and I hope they raise all the money they need to keep their budget for the year. It's a really nice gallery, and they have good shows as well; it's a good place to have around.

Still working on the drawing project, if anyone is following it, and working most of the time on my real job (which is not art unfortunately, but it makes some money). I'm just starting to get settled in at my new places, and collecting furniture and such, making it lived in, and will be painting the walls soon. But, thats not art either, though at least it's painting.

I have recently moved to Charleston, SC for a little while, and I've been here for about two weeks. I've been busy working, but i am actually being productive and getting out to see some things. So I thought I would post some work I have seen as of recently here in Charleston.

Drawing Project

Hey all. Just a heads up, that Chloe Crawford and myself have started an on going drawing project in the form of a blog, where we make work in response to one anothers work. Pretty cool. So check it out, and try and follow us! We just started, but we will post a drawing per day. So keep your eyes pealed! 

http://thisplusthisrepeat.blogspot.com/

On The Horizon

Here is a piece, that I just realized, I never posted.

ON THE HORIZON
2010
OIL PASTEL AND GOLD ACRYLIC ON CARDBOARD BOX

New Drawing Finished

HE IS
2010
Ink, graphite, and collage on graph paper
6 1/2 x 6 1/2"

In3s Press

Here is a link to an overview of the artists in the In3s show, including myself.

http://artspaceliberti.blogspot.com/

In3s

I will be participating in a three person group show this September at artspace liberti, at 2424 E. York Street, Philadelphia, PA, along with Tim Gierschick, and Matthew Sepielli. I would encourage everyone to check out their work. I will be showing (and selling) my three big stripe paintings. Looking foward to it, and I hope you all (whoever you are) can come.

Slowly But Surely

So, my room at my Father's house has become my "workspace" for the time being, having no job, and hence no studio space, I am trying to make progress where I can. Needless to say, I am trying to think small for now, and have actually started a small drawing, as seen above. Not much making has been going on, but I have set aim at reading and writing for the most part; I feel like I need to take the time to do so and learn a new thing or two, and it has been helping to do just that--stirring up some ideas as well. I should hope to post some writing in correspondence with the drawing soon as to what I am thinking about here. Slowly but surely.

Light

A new book that I ordered just came in today. It's call Stillness & Light, and it deals with the Shaker philosophy on architecture, and the way in which things were specifically designed in a very specific and spiritual way. The issue of light is one that I have been thinking about, in a much similar sense, and with this book to read over, perhaps it will lend more insight to the subject, and furthermore help me to flush these things out a bit.

Here are some pictures from the closing reception of my thesis show that I said I would post. There aren't many, but you can get a slight idea of the space. the images are kind of low res, but they were sent to me through e-mail, and I, unfortunately, don't really have a camera to use. so, this was the best I could do for now.

Here is a new drawing, and a look at somethings I'm kicking around now. This piece is dealing with the idea of heaven in terms of the contrast between the Biblical depiction and the picture perfect beach resort we all imagine. I hope to be posting some more flushed out and polished writings about it soon.

The UARTS senior painting thesis shows have now gone up, had both receptions (open and closing), and will be soon taken down. I would have to say we had a fine turn out, and that everyone's work looked great. There are some fine painters graduating from the program this year. As well, I thought I would post my thesis essay that goes along with the body of work in my show, as well as the majority of work that I have posted on this blog, which you may find below. I hope to be posting some pictures from the event as soon as i can get my hands on some. Also, I came across a kind of small review of the senior thesis exhibition that was on Rob Matthews' blog. He came by to see the show and wrote a little about a few of us. Take a LOOK.

EAST OF ETERNITY
THESIS ESSAY
BY
STEPHEN EVANS

Time is the perpetual countdown to the end of all things, and is the ultimate signifier of our temporality. “In the beginning God…” as states the first verse of the book of Genesis, illustrates the start of all we know, and subsequently renders a picture of a beginning with a corresponding end. Whether it exists on the face of a clock, the grid of a calendar, or the streak of gray in one’s hair, we are all intimately familiar with time. We all move through time in our own way, and are in most cases dependent upon it. Enveloping all things, including past, present, and future, it stands to reveal its uncontrollable and ever fleeting manner. In my working I have brought myself to question the issue of time on a grand scale and what it means to me: The idea of time being given as a means of something expendable, as well as the idea of it being taken/spent as apposed to being used. I feel to emphasize the fleetingness of our time on this earth, is to amplify its preciousness, and to draw specific attention to how important it is that we make the best use of it while we can. My 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 and collage. 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 leave the message to supersede the artwork itself.

If you picture Time as a straight line along which we have to travel… we have to leave A behind before we get to B, and cannot reach C until we leave B behind. –C. S. Lewis

Lewis writes about the timelessness of God, and about the time frame in which we live, with fleeting moments and intrusive futures, and how ultimately expendable it all really is for us.
To see time as a whole, or to understand that time exists as one thing, is to come to the realization of a start and a finish, a beginning and an end, or an ultimate sense of boundaries. If we were to hold an object in our hands, we would recognize the edges, the plains, and we would see where the object ends, and where the deep space that surrounds it begins.

All photographs are memento mori. –Susan Sontag

Not only does time’s having a beginning and an end exist on a grander scale, but it is also something that exists on an individual, as well as a personal level: there being a beginning and an end to everyone and everything—a lifetime. The photo, Sontag is saying, is the material proof that time does in fact pass, fade, deplete, and die; and that photos are not only a visual record or evidence of a specific event, but it is a depiction or caption of time that has withered and died. As Sontag says, a “memento mori”—a memorial to dead time. The present rapidly becomes past at every second, laying way for the future which remains ahead and out of sight at all times.

Abstract constructs have been devised as a way to feel as though we have a grip on such a thing as time, or as if we ourselves make the future. Calendars are one example, where we may look at time in advance only as an arrangement of squares, vacant of plans to be plotted on the grid, and to further make sense of something virtually abstract. These devices (calendars, clocks, date books etc.) are man’s attempt to contain something uncontainable, as a means of rationing, as well as merely conceiving. Like staring out across the Grand Canyon, the vastness of something so great nearly disables one’s ability to come to any full rationalization of it, unless it is captured in the frame of a photograph or seen through a lens. Either way, the vast and overwhelmingly pure essence of the thing is diluted in order to be constrained for the human mind. In a sense, the grid of the calendar helps to reiterate the theory that as each day, week, month, and year, begins and ends, just as the very object ends in space, so does the time itself; and like the calendar, each day is numbered. Time is not in the business of moving in any other direction but forward. Which is why we make plans in the future, and not the past. Not even the day just passed could you affect in anyway possible. For we say that calendars and such are for keeping track of affairs, arranging meetings, remembering dates, events, and all the rest, yet not one of them may be carried out if time has stopped for any one individual. What are we really keeping track of, and what does time actually stand to show us?

But if the object is not itself seen, but only heard, the mind of the hearer receives an abstract impression only…and a corresponding vibration is immediately set up in the HEART. –Wassily Kandinsky

We have not seen God, but we have His word (The Scriptures). And in the same way that Kandinsky speaks about objects, so too could this apply to the way in which we experience God—abstractly. We merely get a view of God, through His interactions and works, with and through human beings, but we do not see God Himself. Art, already being something experiential, stands to lend an affective way of experiencing God through a medium. But not just art, but the formal issues of art, through means of symbolism via minimal abstraction. In this mode of working, perhaps the essence of a thing is revealed without facades, in a pure and basic form. To stand and reflect on an actual object, and read the information given as something representative of something larger than itself. As God’s word and people are an embodiment of His presents on earth, so could artwork do the same. Furthermore representing God and His essence through a form that engages and provokes discourse, extending the works meaning beyond its formal and material being.

Morning has not occurred!
That shall aurora be
East of eternity... —Emily Dickinson


Time, having a beginning and an end, therefore leaves the space between the two—our existence as we know it. Our everyday lives as humans wade in the temporal, vulnerable to the condition of our fragile and rationed existence. Time could stop for anyone at any moment. What it would be like to wake up every morning to the realization of this fact, and to adhere the very notion to our hearts at all times. Among the trials and troubles of our everyday lives, perhaps we would attempt to be more patient, and administer more love and kindness. Perhaps if we were to value every second of our lives on earth, we would weigh the worth of our own pride, to be less self-seeking, and more readily to forgive, protect, trust, hope, and preserve; that maybe even we ourselves could stand to represent something more than our material being. For now it is night, and though the sun has not yet risen, the dawn will be at the horizon of eternity, and all will be new.

I will be participating in an art expo at UARTS to help raise money for tuition and scholarship money.

Learn more about it here!

Here is the invite card to my senior thesis show.

Here are some more images of my most recent work.

Things are awfully busy lately, so I have not been able to make as much posts as I would like. I am working on my senior exhibition and everything that goes with it: show cards, thesis writing (still in it’s earliest stage), and trying to finish up some pieces. So, to prove I have been working, here are just a few things that have been in production. Some of the pieces are going towards my show, and others are territories to be continued. I hope to be doing a bit more writing on here,God willing, and maybe even to talk about the pieces in this post.

I haven’t posted in some time, so you’ll have to forgive me; I have been quite busy. I thought I would make a post I have been meaning to make, and it happens to relate to drawing/collage that I had posted a month or so ago, call Joseph and Nicodemus. In making this piece, I had been thinking about Christ’s wounds, His death, and His burial. In the book of John, chapter 19, verses 38-42, the claiming of Jesus’ body is described:

38Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jews. With Pilate's permission, he came and took the body away. 39He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds.[a] 40Taking Jesus' body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs. 41At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid. 42Because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.

In working on this piece, it aloud me to reflect on my own faith in Jesus, and the way in which I prescribe it to myself. In this passage, Joseph goes to claim Christ’s body, but he does it in secret. He is afraid of the Jews. He is afraid of being associated with Jesus. He is afraid of being persecuted because of his association. He is afraid of death. But not just Joseph, but Nicodemus as well, had gone in secrecy. Nicodemus had already visited Jesus in secret when he was alive out of fear also. These two men, disciples of Jesus, go to claim his body for burial. So here they are doing one thing; claiming Jesus (but in secret for fear of persecution), and disassociating themselves with him. Then after they claim him, the do something that seems somewhat contrary to their previous action. In private, the prepare and dress Jesus for burial. Rapping him in strips of linen, and applying spices to his body, and overall, taking such care, devotion, and lending intimate and loving care to the Lord’s body. What they did in private for the Lord, is quite different in comparison to what they did in public. This made me think of how it is related to our every day lives (if you are a Christian). Do you claim Christ in secret, but deny him in public? Do you fear being persecuted for your belief when in the world? Do you claim him in private? In your room? In your car? In your bathroom? And do you leave him there? I asked myself these things, and realized that I was claiming Christ in private; praying, worshiping, praising, reading God’s word, and devoting to Him in the comfort of my own room. I was afraid of what people would think, say, or do because of my belief in Jesus. Secretly a disciple, afraid of persecution. All my art work is centered on my faith in Jesus, yet when it came time to talk about it, I kept it secret. Then what was the point of making this work? What was the point in being a follower of Christ? What was the point of the work Christ did for me if I were to just deny him and do nothing? When I realized this, I came to the conclusion that this needed changing. John 16:33 says this:

“These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”

Christ has overcome the world. On the cross, Christ said “it is finished” (John 19:30). All that could be done was done. We will be persecuted, but Christ is with us.
Matthew 28:20 say this:

“…and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

Christ did not die to makes us safe, but so that we might follow after him and be bold for a cause. To speak God’s truth, and have his guidance. I have decided to claim Christ in public as one of his followers, and to believe in Him as He believes in me. I decided to not be afraid. For if God is for me, who could be against me? (Romans 8:31)