KATHRYNARNOLD
8th Street Studio
My 8th Street Studio and its day to day, or maybe it will be week to week digression on my studio issues, art thoughts, and the duality experience between conceptual/rational and nonconceptual/intuitive. Grid and ground contained all within.
Studio Log
6-5-05
Today was the monoprint marathon. It was enjoyable working with others and meeting people. I also enjoyed this group studio location; the easy going comraderie of the artists all in one building. It would be so much easier to meet other artists in SF if there were some group studios of serious artists like this. My plan is to locate something in Oakland when my lease runs out.
So what did I make. A total of 7 or 8 prints of which 3 were ghosts of originals. Mostly worked in pastels, especially pinks. What was I doing? Rehashing idea of grid, this time as container. Was influenced by painter's work I saw in the open galleries on Thursday night; the dots signifying grids. But yet, you would not see this from the prints I made. But seems like what I was thinking about - gridlike orientation.
Was interesting to see how Liz was choosing works for the exhibition. I believe I am unable to understand others' perceptions of 'good' work. The other people making prints there today had a lot more experience with this process of working. I had to set my own flow and rhythm and the work will need to stand on its own without comparisons. I think it will. I wanted to paste paper on and do other things but we were not working with acrylics but oil based inks so I suppose I will save that for later.
Also, once again the promise to put up photos!!
New exhibiton that I am included in: Monotype Marathon XI
Exhibition: June 17 - July 9, 2005
Closing Reception and Auction:
July 9, 5:30 -8
An exhibition of over 125 prints produced in a marathon weekend of Bay Area print workshops.
6-3-05
What have I been doing? No photo yet of 100 piece piece!! I know I promised, soon. Actually have begun on the companion paper piece. I am attaching maps, thiese are of LA and the idea is to have all types of paper attached. Then, voila, when finished will have glossy sense, rather like an oil painting finish, and then somehow will place an image on it to correspond to the other half that contains a silver gridded border with you know.
Along with that I went to DC and saw the common everyday shadow drawings that Toulouse Lautrec had used in many of his posters. They are touted as being of African American heritage or something like that in maybe Lorna Simpson's work - me, I will need to investigate as that is what I am interested in doing here with these 100 piece works.
Nothing else is happening as everything takes a very long time. Idea of making money with one's art seems so pretensious unless once has rapid turnout and also someone right there marketing them. Neither are where I am at.
Was able to buy these large professionally built stretchers and am very excited about them,; they are about 5 x 8 feet. I am interested in doing some horizontal pieces have done 5 x 7s but never 8' except one that is almost 10' x 8'. will not fit into studio door but these will and did. I have 3 of these 5 x 8s and 1 that is around 6' x 8. This will keep me busy.
Am considering another Last Cafe show but the insurance deductable is more than what my piece would be retail; so like exhibiting without insurance. Not sure if it is worth it except really want to exhibit my nastursium piece with gigantic text - don't think it will ever be seen otherwise.
I have 2 weeks off now except for Saturdays and am delighted. Already have had one question about a grade i submitted; but am sure i added correctly.
Investigating online teaching; it may be a great alternative to driving. There should be 2 classes available at DVC for fall becasue the person who teaches them got the FT position I applied for and was a finalist for at West Valley. So far though she has not given notice which is extremely frustrating; maybe she intends to keep them but it doesn't seem right. Maybe she is still negotiating her contract with WV too. Who knows! I feel PTers who teach when they get FT jobs should relinquish their PT positions in other districts as it doesn't feel right. But out here, money is tight so i would not be surprised if she tries to keep them.
I am rambling and not discussing art. I did see some great paintings in SF last night as I did the open gallery night. Went alone and found that much more conducive to viewing the works. Did not know anyone at any gallery that i knew - still a stranger in this city. A lot of art students were out; maybe some people from a professional development for artist class. But actually saw some paintings - some that were beautiful - will put in the artist name later - were done with encaustic and looked like moss agates. And saw drawings made with mushroom spores!!! Wonder if they will last or decay?
My newest purchase is an IPOD - with this i can have power to put sound into my digital art creations I am working with - and also can tape my art hsitory lectures and make them into movies for online teaching - sounding better all the time!
4-21-05
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/sky4udesign@sbcglobal.net/my_photos
I am back to work. My newest installation of 100 pieces is going well. I should take a photo to place here. Questioned as to why people create work. Is it really about trying to create the newest most innovative work; work that has not been seen before? Or is it about some sort of spiritual value inherent in being creative and accessing those creative aspects within one's mind. Maybe it is the Bay Area getting to me. The pace is so fast; i feel that when i am sleeping i am getting behind. When i am painting, i struggle with the feeling that maybe i should be doing something more valuable. When pressed for what that is however, i can think of nothing else. I am proceeding with my idea of an artist book - not a novel idea by any means but one that explores identity through words and uses digital fabrications; maybe the entire thing will be that. i don't know. i wonder why no one reads poetry anymore or worse, they do not understand how to read it. same with paintings i think.
i now have this notebook that i can take with me to my locations and now when i have hours between, i can work on my work. and i am pleased to be doing so but wanted to update my log. So now part of my studio is by necessity on this machine as south bay is where i teach and SF studio is far away when i am around here. So it should be a good time to experiement...have 8 hours a week in between my drives. and this library with its wireless is incredible. Quiet place to work, less distracting than the studio. I will see what comes of this. In the meantime have a bit of file coordination problem, but that should take care of itself.
so words and identity, an old idea in a new form.
i would be so pleased if images could fit in too!
oh, i need to explore once again the fact that i did not get this most recent ft position, once again a finalist, called in for a second interview. I am beginning to feel used, like i am just invited to fill their quotas.
the work at the studio, why i am here. I am working on the 100 piece painting. I am fathoming still the paper piece that will go with it. I have the studies almost ready for the next stage of forestry. there are 5 or 6. i am experiemtning with colors that evoke a quality. many of my recent works are taking on colors used by animators and have become excessively bright. and i thought they were bright before.
may not be able to settle the question of innovation and spiritual quality...why not work with both. why do they seem at conflict. it is only in my mind i experience that duality. is digital media the only way for innovation to happen? is there new subject matter or is it just redoing what existed before in a new medium? does that seem disjunctive? why are digitally created prints any more than the old traditional processes of printmaking? what makes them different what makes them the same? is it by necessity more linear, more rational? what is there to explore that has not been explored? love the idea of robert stanley's three horizons. What are they? are they the tie to the classical past we cannot get rid of? and as we go past, there is newness? Or is it the question, age old, where am i from, where am i going to, where am i now? i love these multiple possibilities being posed by the title and by the appearance, maybe that's what it is, then why 3, what does the number three relate with...the question where am i now is the largest looming one for me as i investigate explore possibilities? how much intuition is allowed? yet i know and recognize it is tied to, not separated from the rational...yet where is art, where does it fall...i should quit asking these questions and just DO!!!!
3-25-05
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/sky4udesign@sbcglobal.net/my_photos
This is what we did for the exhibition. Some images look like Corbusier's Chapel in France. It doesn't feel like my exhibitions, as it does not present one idea but is a group of works from the past 5 years, plus it is in this high end design store. So feels more about selling than making an artistic statement or comment. It isn't the way my work needs to be addressed as people look at it for its outward appearance rather than for what is says or menas or is about. But it works for now. I have so many pieces and even though have had very good responses from the main galleries in this city, no one has taken me on. It is very frustrating as I know the qulaity of my own work and the concept(s) behind it; sometimes i wish i had gone to NYC instead, they are more open to new things. But my work may not look to SF like a 'new thing' becasue it is painting. People have difficulty readin paintings even still. It officially opened last night; a lot of people, but I am weak on the social end of things. I am used to openings where lots, like a hundred artists come, and this one not so many. Also, in the back room, show place for the gallery artists, someone has imitated an ed pashke painting or copied one directly as i feel i have seen it before, it has 3 eyes and one mouth, that green and red he uses, i should say used. Maybe Jim Nutt. So that bothered me. Maybe it isn't, but I need to get hold of a Chicago Imagists book to know for sure.
There are 2 pieces going to LA next weekend from my last exhibition. Pretty excited about that. My remaining 4 large pieces come home this week sometime.
Had an accident in my studio; one of my large crates fell over and one 5.5 x 6' pieces has two holes in it, pretty large from landing on the 2 bumps in the back of a director's chair. The others survived, but was pretty disappointing. It was difficult to stand the crate back up.
I have been restretching a couple of canvases, getting everything in order again. Since so much of my work is gone I have been feeling great liberty to creat and feel this next set of work is profound, but that may just be me but at least it has me in the studio very involved. How to tie infinity in with the silver lining!!!
Our governor is making so many accusatory statements against teachers, nurses; everyone who does not agree with him is a 'special interest' group. Now the firefighters, police officers, everyone in the state who is in the public sector is very upset, I wonder if he will call them names too. That he feels the pension plans of so many individuals is something to bring to the noninformed people of california, rather than working it through the legislature alarms me and i feel he is trying to buy california. And then on top of it, the harvard research came out about the highest number of dropouts and ca. has the most, the the highest ethnic group to drop out are blacks, and the state depr of ca spokespeople, without having the time to research it on their own, just state the numbers are false. They don't know. Never before in my life have I felt and seen so clearly that the american people are lied to by those in charge, and that they say and do whateever they want with little regard for anyone but the rich and corporations. They even change their words to mold public opinion. And arnold's mercenaries out there collecting signatures - i always thought that people who collected signatures cared about the issues and were political activists but now i know they are bought. It is so evil and with his 'star' power and whatever charisma he has that caused 'the people' of california (but not the bay area or LA - the 2 areas that bring in the most income for the state however) to vote for him in the first place. So first the bush ad. ed. person calls teachers unions terrorists just after 9-11 and now we have arnold denying that unions represent 'the people - the working class - of california' and calls them monsters. California is the most, maybe MIssissippi is worse, underfunded educational system in the entire US, and Arnold calls us special interests and monsters - he is insane - he is representing LA business men and the mutual funds companies that the CSTRS and PERS (the public pension plan holders) won a huge lawsuit over last year or the year before for fraud, these same companies had defrauded the state retirement system, the same ones that would benefit from arnold's plan or privatization...so now it is not just the nurses and teachers who are upset, it is moving and gathering momentum, the firefighters and policeofficers - they are saying arnold S. has lied and is lying about his ballot initiatives and not to sign his petition to get the pension plan and merit pay on the special ballot...i keep waiting for him to call the police officers and firefighters names...he may not because they are predominantly men...and he hates women. But if he does, i think the whole state will see fire and smell smoke. I can see the entire state of ca. striking until he removes his very very ridiculous in both concept and plan from the fall ballot, if it gets that far. It is a mess here, the economy has not come back like bush likes to think, all of the K-12 schools in east bay will be shut down in 5 years under his no child left behind plan that he is not funding (this was reported in the contra costa times - how it will effect the east bay schools). And he got the stupid no child left behind passed using propaganda methiods, false news reporters and false articles, yet no one demands a change. Arnold s. has been using news reports he writes and records as if they are actual news reports and releases them to news stations without ever stating once they are made by the gov.'s office and then they are played as if they are actual newscasts - all of this is unethical and is based on methods of propaganda used by many governments that our country says they hate, it is just so very wrong to manipulate people in this way - we expect truth and accuracy from our elected officials, not lies and propaganda meant to deceive...the republicans had better stop or everyone will turn against them once they realize what has been going on - it is a wake up call to every one of us, no matter what party
arnold s. group would not even acknowledge my email where I stated quite calmly and succintly my views on his agenda, i did begin the letter with the statement that i was a part-time faculty in the ca. community college system...and he must know how many of us there are and why, they don't even have automatic reply or give any indication of reading this email from one of 'the people of california'
Had another interview for a FT position last friday, they have not called yet so i am waiting for that rejection letter, it's beginning to be quite something like i have never experience before in my life
none of this makes sense, no ft job, no gallery, and maybe now the pension plan i just got vested in will be taken away - i'd like to say, what's the deal, but of course i will keep working to get where i would like to be, i wonder if where i would like to be will change?
3-7-05
I have been preparing for this second exhibition - the pieces are being picked up on Saturday. How many paintings? 45!! Approximately. So many. Made me recall Robert Stanley's fall exhibition he had with around 30 pieces, and me thinking I would never take on that much work all at once - to get that many pieces ready to exhibit at one time is so extreme!! Right now i figure oh well and relinquish control over my time and my life.
But they are ready pretty much; just in process of waiting for 5 signatures to dry. So while waiting I looked at the afore4 mentioned website and saw my studio window! This was delightful and I have taken it as a sign. Well, maybe already feeling this sign coming on, kind of a turn the corner type of sign - interesting enough the studio window has a grid and my newest pieces are distinctly working with that.
Had to call a stall on the painted 100 piece piece and am making a small set of 5 studies before continuing. Trying to get that feeling of sky and openness and so far going that direction. Then the silver grid. The paper section had been on hold also as the paper would not flatten. I have discovered a process - place them outside in the mist/fog and as it falls or soaks into ther paper, it flattens. So the poetic tie in with nature and natural processes.
Then will be focusing on the grid inherant with digital display and see where that takes me. I have a lot to do and realizing how little time there may be to do it before I turn the next corner. I am finding myself buying into the idea of innovation and pushing onward. Never have I believed in that before but now, for some reason, feel am ready, the time is 'now'.
The sun is out today and just came back from a trip to Santa Barbara where i collected natural objects. The small mediterranean porch is filled with my collection. Maybe sometime a photograph. This time small rocks with nested calcium depostis of shiny white, a few seashells and more rocks, some I am sure are rounded marbel stones. A few conglomerates of coral and shells - what a cool structural mess!!
Please see the exhibition up right now through March 12 and 30:
45 Fremont and 425 Market in San Francisco
and the new exhibition going up on March 17:
March 17 inside of Ligne Rosette, 162 King St, SF
The studio has been busy preparing, choosing and moving these pieces around for these exhibitions. I also have updated my Premiere Portfolio at:
http://www.absolutearts.com/portfolios/k/kathrynarnold/