The Joy of Sketching

This isn't meant to be a long post, I just wanted to share some of what I've been working on in my sketchbook recently.  I've really been struggling with how I'm going to bring all of these components and ideas together into one cohesive projects.  After sketching for the greater part of a day, I decided to take a break and look at the work of some other artists so I watched some episodes of Art 21 and watched a documentary on William Kentridge.  I've been fascinated by his work for quite some time and was really inspired by something he said.  I'm going to paraphrase, but it was something to the effect of allowing ones self the freedom to do what they like as an artist instead of trying too hard to dissect it, because often when you do something out of simple enjoyment, the end result is so much better than something that's been toiled over, worked and re-worked.  And I think that's where I have to start.  So, without further ado, my sketches (there's one I really wanted to include, but I don't have the image available right now, but thought I did...so check back for an update!):

Timeline Research. Wedding. Terrifying Facts.

TIMELINE RESEARCH.
When I last left off, I vowed to do a better job at keeping my blog a bit more current.  Well, I might not have been very prompt in the immediate follow-through, but I did spend a bit of time doing some research for my upcoming project that looks at the role women played in society from the 30s through the 60s.  In order to get a better grasp on an era which I did not personally witness, I thought it would be helfpul to look into major events and "advancements" in technology starting with the year of 1929 which is, of course, the year the American stock market crashed.    To understand the role women have played in society, it is important to take a look at these events to determine in which ways they are linked.  If it weren't for WWII, for example, the development of suburban communities as we know them may not have happened - at least not as quickly.  And without suburbia we wouldn't have the suburban housewife.  Of course it's possible history would have unfolded just as it did regardless of war or the stock market crash, but I think it's fair to say these events certainly sped up the process. 

Anyhow, I wanted to share some of my findings.  I looked at events that took place each decade starting with 1929, so there are admittedly a lot of gaps to fill.  Still, it's an interesting to look at major events that happened only 80 years ago that have had a direct impact on our lives today and forever changed life, directly influencing how we live today. 

1929

MoMA opens in NYC

BBC broadcasted its first TV transmission

Longest bridge in the world,  San Francisco Bay Toll Bridge, opens

Women are announced to be persons by Privy Council in Britain

1939

Regular TV broadcasts begin

Assassination attempt on Hitler fails by 8 minutes

LaGuardia Airport opens in NY

PamAm begins passenger and airmail service

1949

Truman unveils the Fair Deal Program

First monkey in space

1959

Guggenheim in NY completed

Barbie is launched

US unemployment reaches 1.4 million 

WEDDING.



Left: Dave, Romayne & I   Middle: Ro the Rev   Right: Embrace on the beach

 Now to explain my absence from blogging.  I got married!  We all know what excuses are like, but I think this is a pretty good one.  At 2pm on the 23rd of October, I got married to David Singleton (yay!) in a very intimate setting at the cottages at Indian River Inlet Marina, Delaware.  It was the most gorgeous day and it was such a wonderful blessing to be surrounded by such great friends and family.  The service was led by my family pastor, Michaele Russell, and a long-time friend of both mine and Dave's, Romayne Putna.  This was the first ceremony she's ever conducted, but you would have thought she was an old pro!  She did such an amazing job - words can't even begin to describe it.  Dave's mum, dad, brother and sister all made the trip from England to share the day with us.  And my family was all there, even my dad from Alaska!  The day was filled with joy and love.  Sadly, Dave had to go back to England on Sunday and I won't be able to join him without a visa, which is currently being processed.  We're very hopeful it will be granted, but we won't know anything for at least a couple of weeks.  I'm anxiously looking forward to going back to England so my husband and I can settle into married life.  Keep your fingers crossed!

TERRIFYING FACTS.

The fact that I can't join Dave in England right now leaves me feeling a bit hollow and lost.  Thankfully, I have my sketchbook and laptop, so I can focus on my work.  I've decided to fully immerse myself into it during this tough time.  Idle hands and all that.  Of course not every minute is filled with sketching, researching or blogging (obviously!) and last night I wanted to watch something, but I wasn't sure what.  So I pulled up Hulu and had a browse at their selection of movies.  I was pleased to find a documentary called The Future of Food.  It's so eye-opening!  I had recently watched a more recent documentary about our food industry called Food, Inc., which is also quite moving so this wasn't new news to me, but I found the Future of Food to be a bit more comprehensive in outlining the details of the history of Genetic Engineering, corporate power and its consequent impact on legislation.  I thought I'd share some of the facts revealed through this documentary.

Prior to the 30s, nature couldn't be patented.  This all changed when a man who'd discovered oil-eating microbes took his patent case to the Supreme Court.  His patent was accepted by 1 vote.  This changed everything.  This paved the way for the company Monsanto - creator of the weed-killing product Round-Up - to place a patent on their seeds which have been modified to carry the herbicidal properties of their weed-killing product.  As such, Monsanto has become an amazingly powerful entity who have a strongarm on farmers and whose product has essentially taken over our fields, consequently making it into our diet because, as you know, most of the food products we eat are made with high fructose corn syrup which comes from....you guessed it...genetically modified corn.  As a result of these incredible seeds, super weeds have evolved and crops now require an herbicide to combat this nuicance.  The herbicide used on these super weeds is similar to Agent Orange, which is known to cause birth defects.

 
There's so much I can rant about, but that's not the reason for bringing up these facts.  It's more to illustrate the major shift in farming.  It's also to show how all things are connected either directly or indirectly and although I'm not a historian or scientist, it seems to me there's a connection between the severe droughts affecting American in the 30s, which reached its peak in the late 50s, and this new technology.  And this technology brought more food, which helped stabilize (in some ways) the economy.  This in combination with WWII created an economic boom in the 50s and with so many of our men returning from the War, the creation of suburban communities.  See, it all comes full circle.  My challenge now is to find a way to play on both of these themes in my artwork.  I've defintely got my work cut out for me. 

An Update and Explanation for my Blogging Absence

Well, it's been a long couple of months.  My last post was way back in July.  It's now October.  What happened?  Well, it's a bit of an epic story...are you ready?



Kayaking along the archipalego of southwest Sweden



In early August Dave and I headed to Sweden for a week-long holiday of sea kayaking and wild camping with some of our greatest friends.  It was an amazing trip.  We leisurely meandered along the many islands of various sizes and geoligical character, stopping here and there to sun ourselves on rocks and beaches.  It was beautiful.  The highlight was getting engaged on the first night of the trip; Dave and I were sitting on top of the island we'd set up camp and looking out at the beautiful sea water, with the steeple of the church in Lyseskil proudly standing in the distance, when Dave asked if I'd marry him.  With tears in my eyes and a grin from ear to ear I said, "of course!"  We got lucky in so many ways: spending time with friends, great weather.  Our luck was challenged on the way home.  When we arrived to London's Stansted Airport, I ended up getting detained for six hours and questioned by the immigration officials.  Turns out that volunteering without a visa is a breach of immigration law.  Oopsie!  I seriously had no idea.  It was so scary and harrowing.  Because the officials didn't trust that I wouldn't engage in working if allowed to enter England, I was sent back to Sweden.  Thank god for the kindness of strangers.  It ended up being a lovely second vacation, but of course the seriousness of the situation kept me pretty grounded and fairly somber.  Luckily, Dave was able to make a trip to see me and to bring me fresh clothes.  And after that I flew back to the States.  And I've been here every since.

Current works from my sketchbook

As you might imagine, I've been a bit sidetracked.  Dave and I really hate being apart and have decided to get married sooner than later and we'll be having our wedding on the beach in less than 10 days.  In the meantime, we've been working with a lawyer to complete my visa application for settlement in the UK.  And it's looking pretty positive, but we won't hear the results for six weeks or more...it ain't easy, as they say.  And while I've tried to be somewhat active with keeping my sketchbook updated, it's very slow.  I can't seem to focus for very long.  I guess that's what happens when faced with such adversity.  But never one to be kept down, I had an epiphany this morning that I need to be more active.  I might not have a studio to work in, but I've got a sketchbook, a pencil and some gouache paints and that's enough, my friend, to at least get some ideas down.  So, I'll be working on some new stuff and will do my best to post regular updates.  And in that spirit, I'm posting some of my sketches.  Feels good to get back to work.

Bittersweet.

I love chocolate.  In particular I love dark chocolate.  There's something wonderful about the warm, sweet taste wrapped up with in a slightly bitter edge.  Kind of like today.  On the plus side I was able to get a couple of my silkscreening screens exposed so I can start working on a new body of work.  On the down side, I'm not able to start printing.  Why?  Because it seems that finding a screenprinting squeegee is not quite as easy as an endeavor as one might expect.  I went into the only arts supply store that I can get to on foot, thinking "yea, they'll probably have it."  No, they don't.  They have a kit I could buy for over 70 pounds which includes way more than I need.  Which is awesome.  But I refuse to spend 70 pounds just to get a squeegee out of the deal.  So I asked the girl at the counter if they carried any separately.  And as I figured, they don't.  So I asked if they could order one for me.  Of course they can't (what is it about the sheer lack of customer service in Britain?  In America, they'd be falling over your feet to make parting with your money easy!).  So, I have to either make my own or buy one online.  And buying online will probably be the way to go.  My only issues with that are: 1) I don't want to wait and 2) it's not usually very straightforward for me to buy things online since my address is not an English one and it's a huge bother getting over the security hurdles (mind you, I'm glad they have such measures in place for my own protection but come on!  Give me a break!).

I'm trying to focus on the sweet.  I have screens.  And ink.  (Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink).  

Thoughts on David Nash

The Yorkshire Sculpture Park is located in a wonderfully bucolic setting on the outskirts of Wakefield. The design of the Park dates back 200 years - it is beautiful and vast. I visited the Park a couple of weeks ago with the Lancashire Artists' Network to see the David Nash exhibition, which is on display through February 2011. Before the visit, I wasn't greatly familiar with Nash's work. Luckily for me, the exhibition is stuffed to the gills with his work and provided me with a robust overview of his repetoire. I immediately fell in love with the works and I had to ask myself why. Several weeks ago I had posted two blogs about Picasso and Yves Klein after seeing their work during my visit to the Tate Liverpool. I have a great deal of respect and appreciation for both artists, yet my response was critical and while I was standing in front of David Nash's piece titled "Charred Cross Egg," I had to ask myself why I was so enamoured with this piece, yet critical of the work of two artists I admire.
Nash works predominantly with wood, both living and dead. Interested in maintaining the integrity of the material, he opts to use natural methods when adding color to dead wood or shaping live wood. Organic and ominous, his forms immediately demand your attention. I think it would be difficult for anyone to face a David Nash sculpture and simply turn away; it requires contemplation. It invades your space in a way that's both confrontational and very subtle. It reminded me of Richard Serra's work in the way you are required to interact with it. And maybe that's part of why I responded to it in the way I did; his sculptures are inviting. It was almost like being introduced to a someone - a stranger who is somehow familiar - and having them invite you in to their house to have a conversation. I had a difficult time walking away.

I pondered the familiarity of Nash's work - intriguing given this was my first time experiencing it. I realized it was because his work brought to mind that of other artists I like; his designs were often reminiscent to that of Isamu Noguchi and Henry Moore; his choice to work with and manipulate natural materials reminded me of Andy Goldsworthy. There was a section of the exhibition that focused on works he completed as a response to the tragedy of 9-11. These works were grim - bold marks in black and gray spoke to the heaviness of the event, yet the grace of the line succeeded in capturing the ironic beauty present in the face of such horrific destruction (as a side note, I recall watching a program several years after the event that talked about that very issue; during the program a woman recounted a story of how she and her 9 year old son were watching the events unfold on t.v.; her son remarked on the beauty of the clouds rising from the towers - he couldn't look away.). The confidence of Nash's linework made me think of the architect portrayed in Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead and the same confidence with which he laid down his marks.
Even after writing all of these contemplations, I still don't know if I could definitively pinpoint what it is about David Nash's work that I respond so positively to. I would love to have something succinct to wrap it up, but I think the artist does it best. Here's a quote from the exhibition I jotted down in my sketchbook.

"I learned with these constructions about something developing its own logic that the viewer can enter into. It could have been an integrity and truth that one could feel. And also how a worked object developed its own scale - how it could go beyond the material, go beyond the colour, to have a sense of its own scale which the beholder entered into, which is actually different from its physical scale." (David Nash on his piece from 1967 titled "Archway")

Stranger in a strange land

I was recently accepted into ArtLab, which is an offshoot program of the University of Lancashire.  In order to be accepted one must submit a proposal outlining what you do & how you do it, your experience, examples of your work etc., etc.  It's pretty cheap to become a member and once you're in, you have access to a lot of amazing equipment and the expertise of staff (and other artists working there).  Yesterday was my first day.

Now, the good thing is that I already knew a few people in ArtLab and since I've been volunteering for a local art gallery and shop (PAD Gallery), I have built-in talking points and managed to meet an artist who sells her work in the shop.  I'm joining right at the tail-end of the session - a calculated move because I wanted to get my first day over and done with before it starts again in September.  Since it's the end of the session, there wasn't a whole lot I could really start doing other than get a tour of the place and speak with staff about the direction of my work and how the whole place basically functions.  All of this is really cool.  But, I felt like I was a fish out of water; first of all, my printing experience isn't very vast.  So all of this, while familiar, leaves me feeling a bit daunted.  I really felt like when I was a kid and moved to a new town (which happened a lot) and I was the stranger in a town that wasn't my own.  I could feel people looking at me, wondering with no apparent purpose, and I'm sure wondering themselves: who is this creature and why is she here?  And indeed, because of my own inexperience felt awkward being there as if they could see right through me and knew that I was a fraud.  Of course this is ridiculous because the program is designed to allow all types of artists in, even those with no experience.  Still, all of this made me reflect on how tightly our childhood memories are imbedded in our brains and how they make up our essence.  Even though I'm a much more confident individual now than I was as a child, for the most part anyway, I can still identify very strongly with all of those fears and insecurities. 

I know it will get easier with each visit I make.  And I did take some time to sit down and really formulize what I want to do so I at least have a plan - I think.  It's just a shame I have to wait several weeks to get there.

Finding my Focus

Over the last couple of days I've been doing some sporatic work in my studio, working on some color sketches and content/compositional ideas for a new series.  For the last three years I find I keep returning to a label from an old product called Rinso (shown below).  I am really drawn to the silhouettes of the 50s housewives it depicts.    

I've been doing some sketches based around the central figure for several months and while I was sketching out some other ideas the other night, I got to thinking about the role women played during that time; that in turn got me to thinking about the role they served just a decade earlier during the Second World War. I find it incredibly interesting that women were recruited to serve the country in numerous ways - in some instances they did the work of men (Rose the Riveter comes to mind) and in other instances they were used as pin-up models. In either case, they served a definite role and, from purely an observational point of view, the women seem to be quite proud to be so useful. Indeed they have a purpose. So imagine, then, what it was like for those women after the War ended. Their boyfriends or husbands came home; they moved to the shiny new suburbs and swapped their dungarees and hot pants for a dress, high heels and apron. I did some research and discovered that in the 50s only 1 in 3 women were employed. I can't help but to think that women must have doubted themselves from time to time, even if in the slightest way. Their role was to stay at home, take care of their children, clean the house, do the shopping, cook, and pamper their husband. Of course, that's the way the media spins it - perhaps that's just a stereotype based on a few and isn't how the majority lived.  Still, it does make me ponder.  In response to these thoughts, I started  a sketch that plays on all of these ideas that I thought I'd share.  I'm interested in what journey this will take me. 

Figuring This Thing Out

I'm new to blogging on BlogSpot.  I'm not sure why, but I seem to be having some trouble getting the hang of it.  Maybe there's a bit of a learning curve...of course I felt like that about Facebook the first time I started using that, too.  So this blog is all about me playing around, trying to figure some things out.  It might be boring - my apologies.  I should also mention that I have been blogging on my website for a short time and if you're at all interested, you might consider checking it out as it's a more straight-forward and comprehensive series of blogging.  At least until I get this one fully up and running.  You can check it out at: http://www.bohemianpearl.com/.

In the meantime, here are some pics for you to check out. 

As you might guess I'm a bit of a nostalgia-phile (that's an erin-ism); I made this work last year - the imagery was inspired from a book of Kentucky Derby betting tickets from 1958.  Using an oil transfer process similar to that employed by Paul Klee, I was able to achieve an aged look. 

On a totally unrelated note (and because I want to play around with the many functions), here's an excerpt from one of my favorite poems.  I'll not reveal who or what...perhaps you know?

"Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.


I do not think that they will sing to me.


I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown."

Until next time....