Summer Thighs

This screen print is bound for the Hardy Gallery where it will be assembled with bodily segments from other Wisconsin printmakers into an Exquisite Corpse. Green Bay printmaker and UWGB Professor Chris Style organized the show and I can't wait to see the bodies assembled. The opening reception is Friday, September 4th from 5:30 - 7 PM.

The Exquisite Corpse as we're practicing here dates back to the Surrealists who, according to Wikipedia, put their spin on an existing parlor game. It's one of my favorites. I used it in bars when I first moved to Knoxville, TN and didn't know anyone. The lack of control over the entire figure as well as the absurdity built in to the final result make it a great teaching tool and a nice thing to do with people who "can't draw."

For the exhibit at the Hardy the figure was divided into four sections. Each artist was assigned one of the four and given a template that indicated where the "figure" should pick up and end. My image is very literal; some of the best exquisite corpses I've seen or made depart more radically from the recognizable figure. Again, it will be great to see the prints assembled. I'm especially looking forward to seeing the portions created by Don Krumpos, Johanna Winters, Berel Lutsky, and Ben Rinehart, all area printmakers who I know and whose work I admire.

most this amazing day

For a week or so recently, I woke to the first stantza of this poem by e.e. cummings in my head. 


i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any—lifted from the no
of all nothing—human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

The tone and mystical grammar of cummings mirrors how I feel about our summer in Wisconsin now. It is a beautiful, sweet, and fleeting time. The garden is in, boats are out on the lake, it's as warm as it's getting here, and I get to work in the studio on prints and drawings without interruption. Not to mention the sweet "human merely being" we anticipate meeting in the fall. 

i thank You God for most this amazing day

Photoshoppery

Below is a screen shot from work in progress. This is a detail of a second drawing to accompany Bruce Tonn and Dori Stiefel's article featuring Willow Pond, an imagined typical American subdivision converted to be more self-sustaining.

It's a great pleasure to be immersed in a detailed and multi-layered drawing like this one. I especially enjoy the transition from drawing on paper with pen and ink to adding color digitally. You can see the first illustration made for the article on my website here. 

A 3-Year Update

I'm told artists and other creative professionals should spend a significant portion of their time on professional practice, things like emailing, photographing work, applying to shows, and flossing. I struggle to prioritize my studio time as it is and so this sometimes seems daunting to me. No matter, as I've learned: no one else will do it for you. If I wait on the world to find my work and tell me how great it is,  I will be waiting a long time. And so world, I am here to practice the time-honored practice of shameless self-promotion. 

Below is a three-year update of recent exhibitions, studio work, and my life in between. And here you can browse a PDF catalog of my smaller work for sale. 

justice and love

bell hooks is speaking on our campus tonight with her good friend Gloria Steinem. I'm excited to hear what they have to say. And to see if the much anticipated anti-abortion protesters materialize. I was hired to make some illustrations for the bell hooks residency week. Below is my favorite of the bunch: hooks as Yoda. She is often quoted saying, "Without justice there can be no love." and that struck me as a Yoda-like koan. Karlyn Crowley, head of the Cassandra Voss Center that's bringing hooks to campus, unpacked it better than I can here and so I direct you to her article.

Start Anew

2015! Blistering winds and sub-zero temperatures. Hark, the new year arrives full of potential, promise, and (today) a threatening chill. Behold, the days grow longer. Or so we are told. The lake freezes and thaws and the ice clanks together and freezes again.

New sketchbook freshly sprung from the binding press that sits behind it. 

And in the spirit of new beginnings here is a sketchbook I bound for my Global Drawing Circle, an international collaborative sketchbook conversation facilitated by the fine folks of International Drawing & Cognition Research, "an interdisciplinary research network" who "host drawing symposia, foster collaboration, publish on drawing and cognition, and run educational courses and workshops."

Each member of our circle has started a sketchbook and we will dutifully mail them to one another each month. The idea is to be in conversation with one another through the drawing. It is a different feel than inhabiting one's own personal sketchbook. Here's to welcoming others into our process and the serendipity of collaboration.

drawing bell hooks

A recently completed card and illustration of bell hooks to promote her upcoming residency at the Cassandra Voss Center at St. Norbert College. The clients, Karlyn Crowley and Anna Czarnik-Neimeyer who run the Cassandra Voss Center, wanted the image to tie into the theme of this year's programming which focuses on "heroes, power, comics, and identity." They asked for a loose drawing of hooks: cartoony, but recognizable.

I drew hooks several times and struggled to be faithful to her likeness without getting too fussy in the drawing. I also kept exaggerating her cheekbones to the point of making her seem gaunt.

It's been nice to do illustration work lately. The parameters of a commissioned drawing are like a puzzle with several possible solutions. In this case Karlyn and Anna had a strong vision and gave great (read: very specific) feedback. In sussing out different visual options I also drew hooks as Yoda, but worried that the image wasn't flattering enough. Karlyn and Anna took a print out of that image to the National Women's Studies Association annual conference to show hooks and reported back that she liked it. Woo-hoo!