Hey, Chris--
My Monday evening is following your Saturday evening by a week and two days. I guess this blog is going to chug along in fits and starts.
Actually, life has just gotten a tad easier, so I expect to be more communicative. My two summer workshops (at Montserrat College of Art in Beverly, Mass., and at Maine College of Art in Portland) are over, and the painting for my September solo at Arden Gallery in Boston, http://www.ardengallery.com/next_exhibition.htm, is complete. There’s still plenty of post-painting work to do, but the standing-over-the-hotplates part is done--and not a moment too soon, with the heatwave here in the Northeast. You don't have to deal with 95-degree heat in Oakland, but it's part of the dog-day experience here.
Here’s an image from the upcoming show. It’s part of my ongoing Uttar series, but its foursquare geometry dovetails with the reductive color fields of the newer Silk Road series. By the way, I was so taken with a phrase you used in writing about Silk Road in your blog, http://www.chrisashley.net/weblog/archives/week_2006_04_16.html#001365 , that I snatched it up for the title of my show: "Heat of the Moment."
My Monday evening is following your Saturday evening by a week and two days. I guess this blog is going to chug along in fits and starts.
Actually, life has just gotten a tad easier, so I expect to be more communicative. My two summer workshops (at Montserrat College of Art in Beverly, Mass., and at Maine College of Art in Portland) are over, and the painting for my September solo at Arden Gallery in Boston, http://www.ardengallery.com/next_exhibition.htm, is complete. There’s still plenty of post-painting work to do, but the standing-over-the-hotplates part is done--and not a moment too soon, with the heatwave here in the Northeast. You don't have to deal with 95-degree heat in Oakland, but it's part of the dog-day experience here.
Here’s an image from the upcoming show. It’s part of my ongoing Uttar series, but its foursquare geometry dovetails with the reductive color fields of the newer Silk Road series. By the way, I was so taken with a phrase you used in writing about Silk Road in your blog, http://www.chrisashley.net/weblog/archives/week_2006_04_16.html#001365 , that I snatched it up for the title of my show: "Heat of the Moment."
Joanne Mattera: Uttar 294, encaustic on panel, 36 x 36 inches, 2006
I wanted to respond to your essay and comments about Mel Prest’s work. Top notch, both the writing and the painting. I first saw her paintings last year at Gregory Lind in San Francisco. So simple they are: line after line of color. But so complex is the result, deep of space and luminous of color. Of all the work I saw, her paintings stood out. So for you to choose to write about her work, well, I know we’re doing the right thing with this blog. I particularly liked your description of the visual energy of her work as "a kind of force that seems to lift the painting off the wall."
More generally with regard to your writing I like your concept of language as carving, as sculpture. Certainly well-shaped writing takes us into a dimensional space conceptually. As an artist I’m appreciative of the continuum of creative effort. It’s not a continuum that exists linearly so much as it exists sequentially and simultaneously in two and three dimensional space. An idea that exists in my brain is expressed by my hand and given substance by my materials; it continues into the universe as a tangible object where it is seen by others in person, or as a conceptual object on a printed page or as pixels of light in a cyber screen. Seeing the object or the image dimensionalizes the work in another person’s mind. Written commentary about the work creates another point in that conceptually dimensional universe from which to perceive the work. And of course each person’s perceptions of the work, and of the writing about a work, create additional dimensions in which the work exists.
I think I’ve just described holographic nesting dolls projected in a hall of mirrors as seen on a webcam, but you get my point, right? Or maybe I’m just punchy. I’ve been traveling.
I gave a workshop in Portland on Saturday, at the Maine College of Art (MECA), "Getting to the Next Step in Your Career: Ten Things You never Learned in Art School." Don't get me started about the failing of art schools to prepare their students for a life in the art world. It's better now; kids are learning what they need to know to launch their careers, but many artists at midcareer are struggling because they never got the information in school and haven't figured it out. If you went to art school in the 60s and 70s, there was this idea that art and commerce weren't compatible. Uh, like what's paying the studio rent, drawings? (Actually quite a few artists at midcareer have traded paintings or other artwork for dental work, legal help, and probably rent. My attorney has one of my paintings in his office on Worth Street. But bartering takes one only so far.) Anyway, I'm glad to share what I've learned and to be paid in the process.
Man, Portland is a nice city. Small, clean. Sweltering the day I was there, but normally quite pleasant. Given the art college, there’s a strong creative community manifested by some good galleries: The Aucocisco Gallery, http://www.aucocisco.com/ and June Fitzpatrick, www.junefitzpatrickgallery.com; the Institute of Contemporary Art at MECA, http://www.meca.edu/GalleriesExhibitions/ICA/Overview.aspx , and a raft of artists' studios that open their doors to the public on First Fridays. I’ll be back up in the fall to do another workshop and will take pictures then.
The drive up 95 was my first trip with a GPS. If you think Mapquest is convenient, wait until you have a map with a route taking shape before your eyes, numbers to tell you how far away the next turn is, and a voice to tell you when to take it. My EZ-Pass doesn’t work so well when the GPS is on, though. I guess technology has its limits.
When you have a moment, talk to me about geometry.
Over and out for now.
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