Artist's Statement: Baby Step No. 2

In continuation of preparing an artist's statement, the next step is writing down a short list of words and phrases you think of when pondering your work. Here's mine:

• landscape
• escapism
• reminiscence
• loneliness vs. self reliance (in the Emerson-ian sense)
• affectation
• atmosphere
• abstraction
• sentimentality (with both positive and negative connotations)
• evocative

On the Easel: An Experiment Derived from Rauschenberg's White Paintings

No. 43 (36 x 34")

No. 43 Detail

No. 44 (24 x 24")

No. 45 (12 x 12")

This week I've been looking at Robert Rauschenberg's work, namely his white paintings (pictured below). These abstract works are wonderfully perplexing, challenging the viewer's concept of art. The Guggenheim said of these paintings,

 "In the summer of 1951 Robert Rauschenberg created his revolutionary White Paintings at Black Mountain College, near Asheville, North Carolina. At a time when Abstract Expressionism was ascendant in New York, Rauschenberg’s uninflected all-white surfaces eliminated gesture and denied all possibility of narrative or external reference."

For a while I've been working in close values, but thinking about Rauschenberg's work has made me wonder how close can I get my values while still maintaining a landscape? So this week I've been working on pushing the values near the horizon line closer and closer together. No. 43,  a painting for some family friends, is still in progress and unlikely to stay in its current state. However, No. 44, in my opinion, is wonderfully successful in this experiment.

White Painting (several panel), 1951

White Painting, 1951

Writing An Artist's Statement in Baby Steps

Graduate programs, internships, and galleries want you to have an artist's statement. I came out of college knowing I needed one, but dreading writing it. One or two paragraphs summing up my work, process, themes, and raison d'etre!? eeek! So rather than face this daunting task outright, I'm going to take baby steps.

A few simple questions:
How did you get into this work?
I've always wanted to be an artist. Well that's not true, first I wanted to be a doctor clown (what can I say, I was a creative kid), then there was a while in my early teens when I wanted to be a musician, but other than that, I've always wanted to be an artist. I'd be doing myself a great disservice if I didn't at least try. 

My current work, the landscapes, came about due to a series of college classes taken in a certain order. I took a landscape drawing class with Sarah Frankel followed the next year by a painting class with C of C's resident abstract expressionist Michael Phillips. So I started playing with abstraction in landscapes. John Hull, the Studio Art department chair, said once that abstraction itself can be the subject matter of a painting, or abstraction can be the mantle through which the subject matter is discussed. I loved this idea, to paint landscapes without out rightly painting a landscape, to let the landscape be the mantle through which I discuss my themes.


How do you feel when your work is going well?
 Exuberant, like walking out into the sun, like the world makes sense for a few hours.


What are some of your favorite things about your work?
The atmospheric quality. The tactility of the wood. The emotionally evocative quality.

Here are a few helpful resources I've gathered from the internet.

• Molly Gordon's How to Write and Use an Artist's Statement
• Art Business.com's Your Artist Statement: Explaining the Unexplainable

New Portfolio Website

For the last year my brother has been very gracious in hosting my website on his web server. About two months ago, he decided to trim this toy from his budget and I took it upon myself to not only get my own web hosting, but to rebuild my website, by hand, from scratch, all by myself (well, almost). Two months, a trip to the local library later, and some whining at my brother, here is the outcome, my new portfolio site (warning: it looks crappy in Internet Explorer, I'm not that good).

This of course has led to a redesign and rethinking of my blog. To bring more viewers to my work I'll be writing new article segments, including:

• Artist's I'm Looking At
• How To
• Notable Etsians and Bloggers in the Arts
• Graduate School Admissions Process
• En Plien Aire Painting
• Small Business Articles

I'd like to include a monthly contest (which totally wouldn't be a rip off Cate Wade's Sepia Sunday Photo Contest, not at all), though I haven't come up with the exact criteria.

On the Easel: No. 43

No. 43

 

I've been up in Atlanta for the last week or so helping my boyfriend get situated in his new apartment. It would seem I'll be jumping back and froth between Atlanta and Ft. Lauderdale until the fates (aka graduate school admission offices) give me some kind of inkling into my future.

I brought my whole gambit of art supplies: full sized easel (I must say I love driving a wagon), over-sized palette, art box, a 36" x 34" canvas... the works. I've been working on this painting out on Avery's patio. Below are the photos chronicling the progression to it's current state.

Wooded View on Avery's Porch

2 hours

6 hours

9 hours

No. 42

No.42

2- 24' x 36' panels

Currently on the easel.

Everglades Study (in oil this time)

Thursday afternoon I went out to the Everglades with my friend Claire Moore for some plein air painting. We spent about 3 hours next to the highway on an elevated gravel road that overlooks the everglades. The weather was gorgeous despite the sunburn I got. Painting out of doors has proved really satisfying. The painting resolved into something tangible and pleasing in a matter of hours. In the studio, I work on some paintings for months before I am pleased with the resolution.  I'm looking forward to going back next week to finalize this piece.