Piety and Desire...continued

Preliminary sketches

Lately, I've been working on large scale paintings on paper. (The two images shown here are small scale studies for the larger paintings) I found some paper that comes in 60yd rolls. It's a synthetic watercolor paper made by Yupo. Last night I finished the roll and need to order a new one. I managed to get 3 paintings out of the roll. Each painting is 5ft x 9ft. I lOVE working this large and I want to take advantage of the space my studio offers to work this way.

What first started as a plan to work with landscape in new media, turned into a formal study in painting. What I realized, after all this time, is the elements of the landscape and form that I photographed and superimposed with my organic, fluid paintings are actual formal studies of line, form and color. The imagery I used was secondary to these elements.

Being in grad school, I sometimes feel like I repeat myself, my ideas and the things that interest me. The two things that kept repeating in my dialogues were the fluidity of paint and the sharp angles of architecture. These two elements have always interested me in the work I produce. It's when those two elements combine that I get the most excited. Somehow those distinct forms create a dissonance and harmony that, for me, have become metaphors for many ideas: piety/desire, male/female, organic/manmade.

When I finally reduced those elements to basic form and shape I came up with the square, gestural marks and color. I don't feel that I will tire of exploring these elements for awhile and I plan on continuing to focus on this series for the remainder of my time in school.

I've been working on paintings for a show in September at Cactus Bra where I'll be exhibiting these new large scale paintings on paper.

Sketching

I've started working on paper again. It's a synthetic paper that looks and feels like mylar, but it isn't. I found a roll of it (5ftx60yds) online and I bought it. It feels a bit strange working in a larger format, especially in water media. I'm working on a few sketches and smaller paintings to play with composition and form. The first large painting was new and now that I have a better idea of how the paper works with my puddles of paint I can move forward and plan out my compositions. Although, I kinda enjoyed just going at the paper and just responding to my previous brushstroke. Photos coming soon...

Going Green

So I've been having this hankerin' to work with seeds and plants. I haven't put my hands in the dirt for a long time now and I miss it. It's a love/hate relationship i have with gardening. I love to buy plants, watch them grow and sometimes reap the benefits of their fruit or flowers. I hate to take care of plants - like watering. It's simple and yet I can't find the motivation to do it. So I had to come up with a system of gardening that I call Lazy Gardening. If it needs massive amounts of water...it ain't gonna happen. If it's delicate and needs special soil that isn't already there...it ain't gonna happen. I want to plant it and let it fend for itself. That's my style. If it survives the heat and drought of South Texas, then we have a winner. Survival of the fittest. Soooo, the cactus is my friend and tomatoes are too.

This desire to plant has taken me on an internet research frenzy for artists working with plants or in the urban landscape. And this is what I've found so far...
MOSS GRAFFITI - which i am super excited to try if only i can find that missing piece from my blender...
VERTICAL GARDENS - if only i knew a botanist to collaborate with...

I found another artist who creates these miniature landscapes in public spaces. They are so tiny, only if you were really paying attention to your surroundings would you see them. Link to her website coming soon...

So we'll see what kind of green art i can come up this summer. I'm thinking a Virgin Mary portrait made of grass on some public space would go over well...

Ah, Mes Amis

I just love it when people are brilliant. Tenor Juan Diego Florez performed "La Fille du Regiment" at the Metropolitan Opera. He hit 9 C's and gave a solo encore. Solo encores were banned for the most part during the 20th Century. The last solo encore performed at the Met was Luciano Pavorati in 1994. Just listening to the recording gave me goosebumps. I wish I was there to see and hear it in person. According to the NY Times..." It was one of those thrilling moments that opera impresarios live for." Brilliant. Click on the title to hear...

Pippa Bacca

I read about Pippa Bacca this weekend in the NYTimes. She was an Italian performance artist. I was saddened to read that during her "trip for peace" performance she was raped and murdered. It's taken me a few days to wrap my head around this incident and I still don't have words to describe how it makes me feel.

Sometimes, I think that I wear rose colored glasses - wishing that the world I lived in was better, greener, happier, safer - and trying to find the poetic in everything, even the mundane. Sometimes I think that my work can make a difference, at least in one person. How did Pippa Bacca's life change the world? Did it bring the global harmony she was seeking? Did it bring out the best in people?

-Altruism-coined by Auguste Comte, the French founder of positivism, in order to describe the ethical doctrine he supported. He believed that individuals had a moral obligation to serve the interest of others or the "greater good" of humanity. Comte says, in his Catechisme Positiviste, that "[the] social point of view cannot tolerate the notion of rights, for such notion rests on individualism. We are born under a load of obligations of every kind, to our predecessors, to our successors, to our contemporaries. After our birth these obligations increase or accumulate, for it is some time before we can return any service.... This ["to live for others"], the definitive formula of human morality, gives a direct sanction exclusively to our instincts of benevolence, the common source of happiness and duty. [Man must serve] Humanity, who we are entirely."

This Guy Rocks...

Olafur Eliasson

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/04/17/arts/2008418elia2_index.html#

My Advancement

During the course of my graduate studies at UTSA I will have a total of 3 reviews with the faculty. The first one happened after the first semester with the whole faculty. The second review or 'advancement' happened on Monday with 3 of my professors plus one guest. What I like about these reviews is the opportunity to hear feedback and suggestions.
After each one, I've gained names of artists to research and a renewed enthusiasm moving foreward. I wanted to list a few of the artists that were suggested to me:
Anselm Kiefer
Ross Bleckner
Whitney Brothers
Norman Mclaren
Robert Breer

Wallace Stevens...
Thirteen Ways of Looking at Blackbirds...

I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.

Presentation - Ways of Interaction

Art Daily News
http://camerongainer.com/underconstruction.html
Rhyzome
http://rhizome.org/object.php?47322
Art in America
http://www.comune.torino.it/artecultura/luciartista/index_en.html#galleria
Wooloo
http://www.wooloo.org/fictivedays/

Luminaria

Pee, Poop and other things that I don't like to see in galleries

Today in my seminar class we discussed our values as artists. We are forced to define these values when we look at work we don't like. This is a task that Ron is having me do for Painting. I found an artist, Dash Snow, whose work I don't like with the exception of a few Polaroids.

Snow creates installations called Hamster Nests. Shredded phonebooks seem to be the bulk of the nest. The installations have been created in hotel rooms and most recently at Deitch Projects in NYC. The nests are created by the artist with collaborative help from his friends. They shred the phonebooks, tag the walls and take drugs until they create an environment fit for hamsters. (the hamsters being artist and co.) This drug induced fantasyland, when created in a hotel room (paid for by Saatchi), is left for the staff of the property to clean up which I think is really lame. Other work I've seen include Polaroid photographs. Some of these I actually enjoyed, but seeing a man sniffing coke off an erect penis...I'll pass. The newspaper clippings of police brutality with the artist spoogie splattered all over it...again, not my cup of tea.

I could come up with the regular adjectives to describe work I don't find value in, such as: sensational (but not in a glittery kinda way), juvenile, insincere, sell-out (even though I rarely believe in this notion), blah blah blah....But then i wanted to really give reasons why I don't like the work. So I'm forced to produce my list of core artistic values...as of 2/26/08

Core Artistic Values:
#1. Ethics

Artwork with piss, poo and ejaculate matter are highly questionable. IF I find work with these "materials" that actually works...I'll be shocked, but not *OMG shocked!!!*

See Dash Snow for spoogie work, Andres Serrano for piss/corpse work and Piero Manzoni for poo work. As a side note: every artist listed above is collected/exhibited by major museums/galleries... so somebody likes it. Although, I wonder if Manzoni's work wasn't about making a mockery of the art world and the only people laughing are the gallerists and artist when they cash their $$$ from selling his shit in a can (I'd like to think it was little white turds made out of plaster of paris)

• The use of corpses in artwork makes me sad and is unethical. That goes for animals too.
• Mutilation and suicide...See Viennese Actionists

TO BE CONTINUED...

VIVA NOLA

My dear friend Takashi just emailed me and his installation, Social Dress New Olreans: 730 days after..., is going to be included in the first International Art Biennial in the US...Prospect .1. (yeaaahhh!!) Seventy five artists were chosen to participate. The event will be in New Olreans and its directed by Dan Cameron. When we were there this summer, the buzz about the show was just getting started. Actually, it was just a rumor at the time, but it's for real now. I'm booking my room already before the shit hits the fan. Already it's estimated that over 250,000 will visit the biennial. http://www.prospectneworleans.org/

I'm so proud of Takashi. It was a great experience working with him and everyone else who volunteered on the project. I'm glad our efforts to bring attention to NOLA are being recognized.

Takashi's blog:

http://socialdress-neworleans.blogspot.com/

My blog:

http://latexadventures.blogspot.com/

Brigitte Fontaine

I found a song by Brigitte Fontaine that was titled Conne. In the song she screams 'conne!' over and over again like she's pissed and it kinda sounded like my name. I liked it... but then translated it means 'bloody idiot'....

In Urdu, El Camino means 'idiot'. My friend who is Pakistani told me that they would make fun of the car calling it the 'idiot car'. It's too bad cause I've started to like el camino's again.

Blah blah blah...blah blah

Today was a shitty day for me and my video. My computer can't hang anymore with the big dogs...too slow, glitchy, makes weird noises in the night. I pretty much wasted 3 hours today trying to create a transparent quicktime animation in imageready and then importing it to premier. Sometimes it was all black, sometimes it was green with severe pixelation and the damn thing never was transparent like I created it in photoshop. AND, i know it can be done in a few steps in Final Cut. But I have Premier and i was determined to figure it out. At least I have everything to start putting my animation and video together.

I did get to see some pretty cool films today from microcinema international. the one with the apple keeps playing in my head.

I've been reading the Poetics of Space and it's the best book I've seen so far on the topic:

"Topoanalysis, then, would be the systematic psychological study of the sites of our intimate lives. " (Poetics of Space, Gaston Bachelard)

"O, mes chemins et leur cadence" - Jean Caubere, Deserts
(Oh, my roads and their cadence.)

Thoreau said that he had the map of his fields engraved in his soul.

Memory does not record concrete duration.

"Magical Little Places"

Someone said that to me today and I thought it was cool. But before that, I made this animation...

So then back to magical places...I started to think about it. I like the idea of creating little dioramas in boxes, but then I thought...where else can one create little magical places. The body as site has always interested me. I usually don't think about that place on my arm where blood gets drawn(that's a lie, i do think about it...ever since i read madame bovary in high school...) it's a very intimate place. The stomach's a good place too.

Writing on water

Today I saw a video by Penelope Speier. She's an artist who is featured at the Satellite Space for February. This is her first video installation and it is based on her experience visiting Japan. The video showed a paintbrush writing or painting along the surface of a flowing stream. Sounds of the water moving can be heard and a few fallen leaves can be seen clinging on a rock. Impermanence.

While visiting Japan, Penelope witnessed monks writing over and over again a certain prayer. She was inspired by this act. What I liked about the video was its simplicity. I liked the simplicity of the movement, the simplicity of the site and the simplicity of the sound. It was beautiful.

A few days ago I found a video animation that totally inspired me. It was a mixed collage of animation, photography and video. Layer upon layer of narration made the work complex that I had to watch it over again. http://www.spike.com/video/2916829 I still don't fully understand it. So I think I'll have to watch it again. It makes me want to work with more layers of narration and to play with video. I should write more, too.

Lately I've been drawn to work that falls into the ""less is more" team and the "super lush and seductive" team. I even saw a cooking show last night that had a fish dish from Veracruz with a shitload of ingredients tossed in. At first I thought, "that's too much!" but then I thought, "I bet that tastes sooo good..."

The Diving Bell and Miranda July

Wow. Sometimes I see things that are beautiful and they just leave me speechless. These moments can be subtle and by chance like hearing a baby laughing at the grocery store or sometimes they are created like a Beatriz Milhazes painting at the MoMA. A few days ago I saw The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, a film directed by Julian Schnabel, and the beauty of that artwork has yet to leave me.

The perspective in the film is from the main character who awakes in a hospital to find that he has "locked-in syndrome", a condition which has left him without the ability to speak and without the movement of his body. One eye becomes his portal to the world around him and his only mode of communication.

The tragedy of his condition gives way the beauty of his observations. The glimps he gets when a breeze whisps his wifes skirt to reveal her inner thigh has a new meaning. A quiet moment of beauty to a man who no longer has the sense of touch or speech to express his desires, sexual and otherwise.

As I read Rachel Kushner's article about video artist Miranda July, I was reminded how July also pays attention to the subtle nuances in life. Pooping back and forth and such. ))<>((