Art Show!

My Good Friend Joanna recently had her BFA show. Her work was so charming I have to share it here. It was a mixture of drawings, paintings and found objects with a little bit of installation. Joanna is a collector of old things and nostalgia and I think she shows it nicely in her work.



The piece above is a drawing of New Year's Eve hats her grandfather made for his sons to wear each year. The hats on their own were charming but this drawing makes them something else. Something even more magical.
And above this is a shelf showing Joanna's many collections. It fit in so nicely with her work.

Joanna's great Aunt used to run a summer camp and she recently came across a pile of old photos from the camp. There can't possibly be a better person to have those photos in their possession. Does that sentence make sense? What I mean is I'm so glad she has those photos because they have been a great influence on her. These flags she made were based on those.
And this window filled with buttons was quite a delight.
Here's me with Joanna at her show, drinking a PBR. I think Joanna looks like her work.

I love this piece called The Boat. It's made of a collection of old, found papers.And possibly the neatest part about the show was that she made names for everyone she's known since she moved here. Of all the people who came to the show, no one was left out. It was amazing how she remembered everyone. It was fun looking for names and everyone cheered when someone found themselves. I found one of my best friends' name and since she wasn't there I work hers and mine.

Joanna Goss is someone to keep an eye on. I know she's going to continue to do great things!

New Characters

I've been working on new ghost characters.  There are three girls and one ghost that wishes she was as fashionable as the rest of the ghosts. It's sad, really.

Movies!

I feel like I hardly have time to watch movies but lately I've seen several that were great. I also caught a trailer for a Harmony Korine movie that I'd really like to see called Mister Lonely. His other movies, Gummo and Julien Donkey-Boy seem a little too hard to take so I have not watched them yet. Mr Lonely seems different, very charming. I posted the trailer here if you're interested in checking it out. And if you've seen Gummo or Julien Donkey Boy and you think I really need to see them leave me a comment and tell me why.


I watched Savage Grace with my good friend Joanna Friday night. I think we were not over all that into the movie but we both agreed it was very beautiful. It is a true story based on the Baekland family. I never knew anything about them but their story is very bizarre and crazy. I don't know if I can really recommend the movie but if you're into true crime stories and vintage glamour it may be the movie for you. Read about the Baekeland story here. Below is a photo of the original Barbara Baekeland and Julianne Moore as Barbara,


The next post I'll tell you all about Joanna's amazing art show!

So Frustrating!

Not having a camera is so hard. It's hard to post on here because I have no visual evidence of what I'm trying to say. I'm actually getting stuff done in the studio and I want to prove it but I can't. I wish my camera on my phone wasn't yucky. It would be something. I have a polaroid camera somewhere so maybe I'll invest in some film for that.
Yucky.
I hope everyone had a great weekend. We had nice sunny weather Friday and it slowly got colder and turned to rain. But that Friday weather really revived me. My friend Curtis had his MFA reception Friday, I would love to show pictures of it but.... I did buy a disposable camera, haven't had one of those in forever. But I only took about fifteen pictures and have about fifteen more to take. As soon as I get those developed I'll start the process of scanning and pretend like it's 1999 again.
Sorry I'm so whiny! I'm going to catch up on my blogs now and play on facebook for a while.
Have a good Monday!

Still NO Camera!

I've been working away in the studio like a busy little bee but unfortunately due to a broken camera I have no way to prove it. What I've been doing has been tedious and a little painful but I think It's worth it. Last year I went to visit one of my best friends and she and I started collaborating a bit. My way of responding to her work was to go in with an xacto blade and edit areas by cutting them out. I loved working this way but when I returned to my own studio I abandoned the practice. Lately I've been in a bit of a rut with my work so I went through my flat files and pulled out piles of paper that I'd printed some type of image on and began the process of editing with the xacto again. It's very tedious to do and my fingers hurt but I'm getting more and more excited with the results. It's sort of a new way of layering for me. The image below is an artist I've really taken a shine to in the last year. It's a piece by Christa Donner. I know I've talked about her on here before when I posted artwork that I saw on a recent Chicago trip. She does a lot of hand cutting on her pieces and seeing them in person really motivated me to get back to cutting into my own pieces.
Another artist who employs this method and whose work I've loved for a long time is Stephanie Dotson. She make beautiful "printstallations" out of paper and other materials like felt. I'm absolutely crazy about her pieces and the kind of detail she gets with hand cutting is crazy! Stephanie is featured in the book Illustration Play. This book is definitely worth checking out if you haven't already. There are many great artists here.

If anyone reading this also does a lot of work with the xacto please leave comments telling me how you do it comfortably! My fingertips are a bit tingly and my shoulders hurt. I feel like I must be doing something wrong!

Visiting Artist Jay Ryan

Finally! My some pictures from last week when we had an amazing visiting artist at school. Jay Ryan of The Bird Machine came for a weekend and we printed a fine art poster for him. When we have a visiting artist come to the shop they usually come with a print idea prepared and all the graduate printmakers help that artist print their work. The Bird Machine is in Skokie, Illinois. Jay started this amazing screen shop in his basement and has sense moved into his own place. As you can see from his website he prints both fine art and promotional posters for musicians. Not a bad way to spend your days, right? It's pretty inspiring for all they diy-ers out there.
Here are some photos from our weekend starting with me looking crazy after drinking too much red bull.

This is the only picture I got of Jay as he's walking out of the room. Darren and Curt here did most of the actual printing. I wanted to print but I was a bit too short. Okay, I was also super nervous I'd mess something up, too, so I might have milked the height thing a little more than I should have.So instead I drank Red Bull and held the screen up and pulled the printed sheets to put on the drying rack. Not a bad job at all but lots of moving around. We printed 200 posters!

Here's Darren getting the print registered with the fancy shmancy masking tape on the table registering system.

Here is a pic of the prints after two or three color runs.

Now we add red.

I love this pic of everyone goofing around. 200 prints is a lot of prints to pull but we all stayed in good spirits. Jay was a lot of fun to work with and we listened to copious amounts of Girl Talk.

Jay Ryan is not only a printmaker, he's also in a band called Dianogah. While he was here his band played at The House Cafe. It was a fun break from printing and his band is really rad. Check them out here.
So, you're probably wondering after all that, what did the finished print look like?! Well, remember how my camera broke???

BLAH!

But if you go to The Bird Machine site you'll see the finished piece. It's here. It looks like it already sold out which is great! But if you like what you see on Jay's site you should buy it. The posters are beautiful and affordable and actually hand-pulled screenprints. That's a real deal!

BAD NEWS!

Today's post comes with no pictures.
Because my digital camera broke!
worst break-up ever.
But I'll post the pictures that are not busted soon. Look out for a very special post about an awesome visiting artist. Mystery....

beautiful Dior ad

Red Rocket Gallery Online Show!

Remember when I posted this piece? I did this for a print portfolio called AngelF***. Sorry! Not my title! The portfolio had a lot of great work in it. My fellow grad classmates Curtis Readal and Mike McGovern organized it. It was on display at a venue at SGC but you can see the whole portfolio online at Reg Rocket Gallary! Click on the thumbnails to see each piece. Also, the website Printeresting wrote up a review and I'm one of the featured artists! Check it out here!
I'm really excited about this exchange and was honored to be part of all these great artists! I hope you enjoy it!