Fail Boating or Success?!

Today and the last couple days for that matter have been trying.  I have recently decided to give up on making a film.  I'm not enjoying it so I think it is perfectly OK to stop.  Since I have stopped I have started to feel less depressed, and I have motivation to start other scary things.  Today I made my very first mold.  EVER!  Here is the chronicle of my fail boat.

Below is the disaster of my first pour.  Before I got to this point I had a bit of a mold meltdown.  I was initially just going to use the wooden box and punch the military pins through some cardboard.  Well, the cardboard got stuck in the box, and I had to cut it out.  Then, being the lazy person I am, I decided to reuse the mutilated perfectly shaped cardboard so I coated it in clear tape, reattached my pins and placed it in the box.  Then I read the directions...

Once I read the directions I realized I couldn't use clear tape and I had to use something that was non-porous or varnished wood.  I had neither of these at this point.  I ran to my shop and got a giant ball of clay.  I used this as my mold base and just stuck the pins into it.  This entire process took me about 3.5 hours.

Not hot enough and not enough!

Due to my impatience I didn't let the Gelflex "moltenize" enough and this was my first pour.  It looked like I had cut up a ton of Gelflex but I guess not.  So I had to recut all of this and melt it again.

This fabulous device is a Ranger Melt Art.  Scrapbookers are genius!

My second melt was maxing out the container, was not enough, and again not hot enough.  Also, there was too much of the blue/large Gelflex resulting in lack of detail in my tiny military pins.  So at this point I scrapped it all recut just the delicate Gelflex (beige), took it into the kitchen and melted it in my toaster oven at 302 degrees for 2 minutes.  End result?

Success!!!

Once it cools I will add a picture of my final mold product.  Tomorrow I will attempt to use plaster of paris in small quantities and enamel resin for the first time.  Sweetness!

I also made an acrylic skin that turned out the wrong color, and a really dumb clay steelhead salmon/trout.  Back to the drawing board with these items.

While I was waiting for my Gelflex to melt I did some research and found two really cool artists:
Michael Rakowitz and Gina LeVay.

I also found some good articles on current military perception and OIF and OEF.

Garry Oak Gallery

I have been invited to display my work this fall at the Garry Oak Gallery in downtown Oak Harbor.  I'm excited about this since it is my first interaction with the local art community here! 

I went in initially to see what local artists are doing, and maybe perk up my lacking enthusiasm towards art lately.  I ended up in a long intriguing conversation with one of the showing artists.  The Gallery is a local artist coop that runs a rather successful business with the Gallery and throughout local events.  The people in this Gallery are your typical western art fair and festival participants, but they make beautiful work all the same.

Outside of that I am still waiting for all of my supplies to show up to begin making casts.  I am experimenting today with soft gel and making transparent color.  Since I have to make a trip to Anacortes I am trying to find things to do in my studio that won't wear me out for my drive this evening.  So...now I'm just watching paint dry (and reading).

Start To My New Idea

Well, I have started the first painting in my new series.  It's a very small painting for me.  I don't usually work this small.

This is the base coat.  I used my palette knives to lay it in thick and just hint at the idea of a flag.  The marks don't necessarily mean flag, but the common image conjured is flag.  I think this is working with symbols without using symbols?  Maybe.

I found this rather insulting image of a "real American hero" and decided to make it transparent.  Then I decided that wasn't enough so I cut it to bits and scattered it on my "flag".  This is all an illusion. 

From here I don't know where it will go.  Does it need to go anywhere else?  I feel like it needs more, but I've set it aside to "stew" for a few days.

At this point my concentration was broken because my dog disappeared.  After calling for 1/2 an hour and him not coming I lost my motivation to paint.  I found him in the woods rolling in a half a deer spine and ribs.  Obviously more important than coming to his master.  My dog makes it hard for me to get my work done.  I wish I didn't have him.  That is my vent for the evening.

What?!! Progress...

Snapped a photo today of my base coat.  Can't guarantee I will remember to do this for all paintings but I'm going to try.  This base layer took a while, and I don't know what it will be when I'm done.  I'm working on just feeling it.  I felt the color blue-green...yeah...so now what?

What?! Is that progress I see?

Products are ordered for my future sculptural endeavors.  They won't be here until maybe the end of next week if I'm really lucky.  So I figured I can prep my paint surface and tomorrow I will build a few more frames.  I have about six more at this dimension I think, which I really like so I'm glad I have some already cut.  Looking forward to playing with badass power tools tomorrow!

The Return Home

Today marks the one week mark since returning home from my first residency in Boston.  As recommended by my Adviser I took the first week home off.  I did type up my notes from everything I recorded on my 6 1/2 hour flight home.  Tomorrow I will start on my Residency Summary to hopefully give me some insight again into my future direction.  I have been working to find a mentor, and start collecting my books from my reading list.  So far no joy for either venture, but I'm sure it will all work out. 

My next step is to create a day planner to track my hours so I stay on track and I have proof of the work I am actually doing.  After that is complete I will begin my first leg of internet and journal research which will hopefully (fingers crossed) lead me to more books to read and artists to research.

Josiah McElheny and Charline Von Heyl

On July 1st I went to the ICA.  I felt I couldn't leave Boston without seeing what they had to offer.  At the time they were showing works by Josiah McElheny and Charline Von Heyl.

I feel like I can relate better to Josiah's reflective work like his scale model of a totally reflective landscape.

Scale model of a totally reflective landscape 2005

 

 

 

I guess it is the simpleton in me that appreciates being reflected in the work and seeing my own landscapes and feeling my own memories.  His "chandelier" work, though amazing, was not as thought provoking for me.  Maybe because I wasn't allowed to touch them and I really wanted to.  Maybe because I was tired from the residency.  Either way I did not get a sense of modernity and the universe.  I felt like I was looking at every day objects. 

Island Universe 2008

Maybe this is what Fia was talking about.  The sense of feeling something personal in relation to the work without seeing the private.  I'm just not feeling the personal in these later works.  They feel cold and rapidly executed.  Maybe that is what I'm supposed to feel.

From the permanent collection the ICA had on display Charline Von Heyl.

Yellow Guitar 2010

 She is an artist working abstractly from abstract forms.  This I find hard to believe.  The brain relates to abstract forms and attempts to make it a known object.  Like seeing a face in something that has no face.  I think the complete dismissal of symbols and known objects is complete bunk, personally.  How can you not be influenced by what you see around you, unless you work in an isolation chamber.
I found this show gave me a lot to think about.  Questions about my own work are surfacing from the questions about these "great" artists' work.  

Aftermath

I'm making posts prior to my residency because as a new student this was something I looked for in other AIB blogs and never found.  I wonder how the pre-residency went for most people.  Where did they stay, what did they read before hand, did they buy books, how much contact did they have with their buddy?  I've always been a person with lots of questions.  I guess that's not really the norm.  

Well, the move did not go as planned...at all.  In fact, it took about three weeks more than we thought it would to get up to Oak Harbor.  Now that I'm here I'm trying to get myself back on track.  It is almost June and I still have about three books worth of reading to do for the upcoming residency.  I have yet to e-mail any mentors either, and I'm not really sure I am supposed to yet.  I've noticed some of the information sent for class-up is a bit on the vague side.  I understand that with Graduate study you should be quite independent, but as far as the mentors go I guess I would like a little more direction in that department.  I think my main problem is there is no internet at my new home.  This is an unpleasant new obstacle, but I've found other avenues outside my home to get service.  I just am going to miss procrastinating till midnight, and doing my homework in bed in my jammies.