Work in Progress

I've been slowly chipping away at this drawing of a dandelion for ReallyBIGPRINTS!! this summer. Next I'll add in the gradated lines of the sky. Then: sand my wood, raise the grain, sand again, transfer the image, seal it, and carve, carve, carve. All in time to print in July.

Plywood by Post

I now live in a place that is somewhat lacking in visual arts culture. It exists and some of it is excellent, but it's harder to find and geographically scattered relative to my previous homes. As an extrovert and artist this means I have to work harder to make and maintain the connections that feed my spirit and sustain my work. This need for creative connection is compounded by the recent birth of my son. Though he is a delight, caring for him makes getting to galleries and museums, to say nothing of events after 8 PM, more of a challenge.

All of this led me to stew on how I could cultivate and experience the kind of creative community I seek. Number One on the list: be better about showing up for what's going on in my area. There's the wonderful John Michael Kohler Art Center, the Lakeshore Artists Guild, and the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum to name a few. Number Two on my list is Plywood by Post (#plywoodbypost for the digital savvy), a recently launched collaborative drawing project in which participants will draw on and pass along by mail small pieces of birch plywood. The boards went out earlier this month to 14 artists all over the country-- listed and linked at the end of this post-- and I'm excited to see what happens. 

Wood going out in the world thanks to the USPS. 

I modeled the project after Global Drawing Circles, a project by Thinking Through Drawing, an "interdisciplinary education and research network." In those circles each artist started and then worked in a a sketchbook which we passed on monthly. I don't know if it was the chemistry of my group or the large amount of real estate afforded by a whole book, but my drawing circle did not draw on or into the previous drawings. My expectation here is that the limited space of the plywood will force us to respond to what others have done. These are the participating artists: Alex Cline, Brian Hitselberger, Bud Ries, Chatham Monk, Don Krumpos, Genevieve Lowe, Holly Briggs, Justin Rice, Katie Ries, Rachel Clark, Rachel Schattman, Sara Marie Miller, Susie Ries, Tanyssa Behnke, and Veronica Siehl. (Update! Just added to this mix: Steph Untz.)

I look forward to seeing the project unfold and to the artistic communion of shared drawings (and occasional emails about the project). Need to get my board started soon. 

Birch plywood, 11.75" x 9"

Wisconsin Biennial

Alex Hopkins, The Fifer, Archival pigment print, 2015

The Wisconsin Biennial is coming up. I'm honored to have a piece in it and to be in such good company as Alex Hopkins of Green Bay (above). The exhibition is sponsored by Wisconsin Visual Artists (WVA), the oldest artist organization in the state, and will be put on at the Museum of Wisconsin Arts in West Bend, WI.

The exhibition features work by around fifty WI artists and will be up February 6th - March 27th. If you can, please join me for the opening reception on Saturday, February 6th from 2 - 5 PM. More information about the show is available here.

SNC Magazine

Thanks to Susan Allen, editor at the St. Norbert College magazine, for suggesting a feature on the Land Scouts. Thanks also to writer Paul Nicolaus for a generous interview and thoughtful article.

You can read the full piece here. 

Wisconsin Winter

Three years ago when we knew we were moving to Wisconsin we got lots of advice (some of it solicited) on how to handle winter. I made a drawing about it...and then lost the drawing in a stack of sketches. In cleaning out my studio recently I found the drawing and cleaned it up a little in Photoshop. Here it is. So far, we've been able to do everything except the Packers game. And sometimes, privately, in late winter, we complain about the weather.

Grant Writing

My colleague and St. Norbert College curator Shan Bryan-Hanson interviewed me about the grant-writing process that brought artists PlantBot Genetics to Green Bay. You can read the short interview here: http://sncartgalleries.com/2015/09/17/writing-grants-greening-the-bay-and-social-practice-art/

MOTHOLOGY on display at the Baer Gallery at St. Norbert College

Hardy Gallery Opening

The Exquisite Corpse: Head-to-Toe and End-to-End show opens this Friday, September 4th at the Hardy Gallery. The next two days (Saturday and Sunday) there will be a free steamroller print event. Wednesday, September 9th at 3 PM Sam Watson will lecture on Surrealism. Fun stuff!