ASFASA Festival cont'd - these socks were made for walking...

Hey there thinkers --

It seems my painting up and walked away today.  Away from the temporary show at the Concordia student lounge and to a longer-running part of the ASFASA Festival at the Philosophy Department on 2100 Mackay Street - It's All Relative: the conceptual, philosophical theories, knowledge, a search for meaning.

Vernissage is tonight at 6:30, and my painting is about the fallibility of memory and the layers of meaning we must push through to realize that there is nothing on the other side but the same emptiness that's inherent in everything.  It's called "Black Socks"!

k, that's it.

ASFASA Festival 2010

"The ASFASA Festival is an interdisciplinary initiative that aims at creating links between students from the Fine Arts and Art & Science faculties while encouraging communication and the cross-pollination of ideas between departments of Concordia University."

And once again, a science and art mashup, this time my painting work can be seen on the 7th floor of the Concordia Hall Building (2060 Mackay street), from February 8th - 12th, through the Philosophy Students Association.  Hope to see all you science cats there!

[ see Google Map ]

I chew-chewse Pavel Tchelitchew

It'll be interressin' to see how many people get to this page by Googling "Pavel Tchelitchew".  Anyone banking on NONE?  Bueller?  Anyone?  Shirley? No, I doubt it.

Not for lack of being awesome, of course.  Pavel's awesomeness, that is.  Here's where I'm supposed to expound like a good an informed blogger who's wise to all things art historical, but the truth his he's entirely new to me, and that's definitely the point!  For class we have to make some laughably non-thinking project on anyone who's drawn anything at all in the last 200 years, and fortunately I found this guy among all the articles.  Caught my attention immediately with a tree that is not a tree....

Yes, that's more like it, and what do I know about the guy?

He's Russian, influenced by macabre Romanticism, has a very popular painting at the Tate, lived from 1989-1957 (died young at 59), not terribly well-known, worked on set design for ballet, had a few shows in Paris and London and the MoMA, had a thing for astronomy, alchemy, childhood motifs and interior/exterior body landscaping (sublime veins and the like)... and I think I'm in love, you guys, at least for today.  

Summerpaintings.

We finished our last painting critique today, and my children were bare on the wall, full-colour splayed all vulnerable and unfinished, like feverish flowers or spider spittle or cup noodle ramen...

Not terrible!  I said that my influences were Matta, Japanese prints, religious art, comics, systems of organization and every manner of non-human humanity there is (ghosts, demons, robots, spirits, gods, chimera, golem, imaginary friend, faun, angel, what-have-you).  I feel like I could have made more... but isn't it the way to always be hard on oneself.  

I'll be setting up my home studio soon (ie: the bit of floor next to my bed), and make lots and lots of works in an experimental vein before the summer is out.  Portraits that are a little fucked up, faster works, maybe copy some old masters so I can figure out how the frell to paint silk.

Maybe I'll sell my bed so I have more room.  It's a thought.

Eating paint for breakfast. (Hero # 37 of 581)

I'm having trouble keeping my eyes open.  It's one of those massively beautiful sunswept friday mornings where I'm a little underslept but still sitting at the bask-point of summer, in front of my window.  Not too hot (not this summer anyway), and having to invent some activity to fill the rest of my day.

Ah, I know.  Galleries!

I think my brushstrokes need to some heroes to look up to, and I mean that so literally it's almost child's play to fix.  Essentially, my paintings are looking finicky (to me) and I'm pretty sure that the established contemporary artists might have some clues as to how to make an effective Effect without getting so OC all the time, every time I want pink to fade to orange I break out the hobby brushes!  Not so useful!

One artist who I can think of recently who's inspiration in this regard is Dana Schutz, who I just discovered.  She paints an alter-verse populated by people who have the ability to eat and reconstruct themselves like it ain't no thang, and the colours people, OH the colourss...  she's part of the movement that my painting teacher calls "Post Human", which apparently I'm a part of and you'll hear no complaining from me about that designation.  Human is so passe anyway, bring on the carnivorous cheery golems I say.

See? ----->

So rough yet so effective.  Wowee.

A shell of a game

This is the calm place that doesn't change but just sways lightly in the current; growing scales, barnacles, pearls... transforming shipwrecks into coral.  Making a bit of a whale sound, but whooshier.  

“That is just what life is when it is beautiful and happy – a game! Naturally, one can also do all kinds of other things with it, make a duty, or a battleground, or a prison of it, but that does not make it any prettier.”
Hermann Hesse, The Journey to the East

RIP bird sundae

The finished product!  WEll... mostly.  I lucked out in that the professor had snapped a pic before I lost it, so there we see it indeed have wings!  They're a bit cut off on the side because I hate Safari browser and it's inability to let me position photos correctly, but you can see it up close at my Flickr account (and click on "All Sizes" to view it in more sizable glory).

I was thinking of ice cream while painting it.  Ice cream and beetles and organs, oh my.

Stolen or Given Away?

I've lost you, painting.  *weepsniff... oh well*

This is what happens when you procrastinate about picking up your artwork from studios at school... I managed to find 4 of the 5 that I made this spring, but unfortunately not the largest one.  And my favourite one.  It looks like that picture up there, except more refined, and with huge white wings, and I don't even have a picture for my portfolio!  That might be the worst part.

On the other hand, ephemerality of art, right?  I'm not actually crushed, I guess.  Onto the next works...

Speaking of works and ephemerality -- I worked on a delicious batch of vegan Carrot Cake Cookies while working on a drawing piece for Fatigue Magazine, and both turned out beautifully.  (the cookies are ephemeral because I ated them!  the submission because I am handing it to the editors on sunday)

Hope everyone's having a happy May so far!  I know there're readers out there, regardless of no commenting, so to all three of you, I wave and send a virtual cookie, can you smell the cinnamon? :)

oh I've been working on the silk road...

I'm still alive!  I've been busy with the end of semester, working on a few larger paintings for class, and hoping that I manage to step away from the brushes long enough for things to dry so I can take them into school without smudging them all over.  Lately it's all been about colour and fluidity... and big dots.  And wishing I had more tubes to choose from.  This summer I'm taking another painting course though, meaning a lot of focused attention and hopefully some splurges at the art store.  New brushes and solvents and surfaces, oh my!  Who needs a vacation when you can build worlds at the end of your bed/studio? :D (I'm only half joking!).  I can always do Asia after school (and that way I don't have to come back if I don't want to...)

So you probably also noticed that's a self portrait up there.  Or, um... if you've ever seen me, you'd know that's my funny face.  Appropriately sitting on my pirate lunchbox canvas perch (!) anyway, I needed to make a new one after destroying the last one in my first public performance two weeks ago.  The project was a combination "destroy something you love" and healing piece that involved Javanese gamelan music, an ancient television set, a huge pair of scissors and a bucket of white housepaint called "Moonlight".  It went so powerfully, even if the documentation video ended up being pitch black, *sob*.  Maybe I'll post it anyway, but it's really really lame and all you can see is a fuzzy blue screen and my arms flailing around.  Ah well, such is life.  I'll just have to be brave and attempt another performance, maybe this one with a light source around?  ha.

Here's also a sneak look at the kind of work I'm doing right now.  Again, very colour based...

It's very much not finished, but it's close, and my vision in pigment is starting to speak the same language as my drawings, which I'm happy about.  I'm even kind of pleased about the big blank bare canvas spots... don't ask me why.  If I had to speak inspiration... I'm waist-deep in Chinese philosophy right now, which was almost certainly a subconscious force here.  The whole Jade thing it's got going on, as well as rather perfectly exemplifying the Neo-Confucian concept of Li, which is "the underlying intelligence and order of nature as reflected in its organic forms", as quoted from Wiki.  

It's really astonishing actually, how the world orders itself into an awkward & pure perfection. The other day I found myself staring at the folds of my headband hanging off the radiator in the bathroom, remembering the dark shape and feeling almost as if I'd seen it before.  Or drawn it before.  And I probably had.  Which makes me wonder about chaos and how much our surroundings are shaped by the physical way we interact with them, and how much by our perception of it all.  Like, when I toss a book on my bed... does it land in a particularly Elizabeth sort of way, and I'm inclined to say yes?  And in that case... is making oatmeal or catching the bus art?  Holding a pencil or a lover is the same?  And when I see a book that someone else has tossed upon their bed, do I mentally alter the angle and colour to fit into what I've deemed aesthetically comfortable to MY reality?  If it doesn't, what happens then?  Who designates this Li stuff, anyway? !!

haha, okay, I shut up now. :DDDD

*doodles*

I've been reduced to this? bollocks!

It's strange to think that it's actually been almost a year since I've given this blog any thought. Similarly, New Years came and went without my taking stock of anything that's happened during 2008, leading me to almost believe that I'd done nothing.

This couldn't be any untruer. Most notably and perhaps most quietly... I found my artistic voice again. I recognized it as the secret joy of feeling the creaminess of graphite scribble as I worked feverishly into wee hours of the night... it would have been since grade 9 that I'd felt so in love with just drawing for it's own sake. The rekindling of this was due to meeting a remarkable person who has since moved on and through my life to her own adventure, and while this person will probably forever BE 2008 to me, I move on to the other small areas of note.

I finished the 10-day Master Cleanse in the spring, and thus quit smoking. Okay, that one IS pretty big.

I published a few zines, including the relatively successful Underwater Cigarettes #3 that got reviewed in Broken Pencil. This led to a busy mail life that involved some packages and mail art and old school enveloped fun. I might dive back into it sometime, when the mood strikes.

I started an Etsy shop, which I had been thinking about for a while and made a little over 100$ out of stuff that was laying around in my drawers. Not bad!

I decided to minor in Religion, and join the ranks of all those with useless degrees and too much propensity to think about things that probably function better when they're not under scrutiny.

I became ridiculously skilled in the kitchen. woohoo!

Um... what did I not do? Talk to people. Take some risks. Say yes to things. Be open? And this is what the new year is about now. This is travel year, in whatever form that comes in. I haven't decided where or how (exchange through uni or WWOOFing), but I'm taking whatever skanky boring job I can get with the express purpose of saving up a plane ticket. Some places are really cheap! Ecuador, Japan, wish I could go to New Zealand... anyway. That is this year.

Not to mention drawing my wee heart out, as if I could ever put that pencil down.

Other things 2009 will bring:
* at least one date
* a table at Expozine
* a plane ride
* breakdancing
* a performance art class!
* participaction in an art show (crossed fingers for Art Matters)
* doing one thing that scares me every day. Today I called someone. :)