Diana Behl

A few years ago while looking through a New American Paintings I discovered the work of Diana Behl.  I loved her mixture of drawing and collage and her sense of composition. I found her work at a time when I was desperately trying to figure out my own collage aesthetic.  It was a way I always wanted to work but for some reason it was making me too nervous to just dive right in. I carried around that New American Paintings so much it was practically like a baby blanket.  I looked at Diana's work for motivation.  So at Frogman's I had the absolute pleasure of meeting Diana and she's an absolutely neat and lovely person.  She was on my bowling team and it was so fun getting to know her.  That's one of my favorite thing about frogman's, you just never know who you are going to meet.  I've been a fan of Diana's work for so long so to finally meet her was very exciting.  While looking for images to show on my blog I found an interview with her here.  Check it out.  Diana's website is here.  Go discover more of her work!

gretchenmist: giveaway!

gretchenmist: giveaway!

Go here to read a great blog by an amazing artist and enter her giveaway for the chance to win a beautiful pendant! 

To Read

It's early morning and I'm about to head off to the beach, but not without suggesting some great reads. These are some newer blogs to me.  Maybe they are ones you already read but if not definitely check them out.  They always have beautiful images that are very inspiring.

Saelee Oh is an artist I'm really into. I first discovered her when she was on the cover of Giant Robot.  She's a really neat person and her artwork is beautiful.  I love all the handcutting she does.  Check out her site, she did a show with Jill Bliss and they made some beautiful things together.

I've been a huge fan of Caroline Hwang for a long time now so imagine my excitement when I discovered she had a blog.  That's what I love about blogging, so many people you admire and are inspired by have their own blogs and it's a great way to learn more about your favorite artists.  Caroline seems like a great girl and I always love her work.  Check her out here.
I'm not sure how I came across L.A. in Bloom but I'm glad I did.  This site always has beautiful pictures of food, art and plants.  The blogger, Heather Taylor, owns a gallery in L.A. and lives a fancy life filled with yummy beautiful foods, backyard gardens and lovely art.  Learn all about her here.

Jeana Sohn is a west coast artist who is represented by the gallery owned by the aforementioned Heather Taylor.  I love her work and her blog is great.  She takes a lot of pictures of her everyday life.  It's real simple and real beautiful.

Finally, of course I would love this blog just based on the name alone.  But besides that it's a really cool blog about party ideas. This blog helps create beautiful parties.  The blogger was a former art director for Martha Stewart.  Look at it look!

I'm at the beach! And luckily for me I have wireless internet so I can blog away!  Today instead of posting about the beach I was thinking about some work I was doing at Frogman's.  That seems to be a theme lately...  There I told everyone my take on middle school dances, this is what happens, the girls are in the bathroom crying and the boys are just looking for free pizza.  There is always free pizza, it's the only way to get the boys at the dances.  Oh and Garth Brooks' "The Dance" is always playing which usually sets off the crying.  If you haven't heard that song listen to it.  There is something about it that will make you cry in the bathroom over a boy or yearn for free pizza, whichever side you fall on it will be a natural fall.

So I started working on a piece that expressed those feelings and while I was looking through my sketchbook I discovered all kinds of notes I'd written to people while during class because my mentality is apparently stuck in middle school (maybe at a dance).  Some of the notes are really funny and odd, especially when taken out of context.  I thought it would be interesting to do a series of work with those notes in the pieces.  For my middle school dance piece I used the note "this is going to be painful."  I don't have an image of the piece because the process I used didn't work well but I'm going to make the piece again and maybe use it for another giveaway. But there are some other interesting notes in my book that i plan to make art with. my favorite is:

I have to go to the bathroom really bad.  

For some reason I always find it necessary  to tell whoever is by me that I need to go to the restroom.  Another note said: I never realized ______ was so hot.  I scratched the name out so anyone else would not know who blank was, but believe me, he's pretty hot.  I did the same thing when I wrote that: I hope _____ and _____ hook up.

This whole post is to prove that I'm still a tween girl at heart.  I always want ____ and ___ to hook up!

The past few days in the studio i've been working on a litho print.  The top image is a freshly grained stone, in the second image i started drawing and doing washes on it. The last image is more drawing.  Today I worked on it more but left my loaner camera at home so I guess you'll have to see it once it's printed.  I'm very excited about this print.  I'm going to hand color it and do more drawing on it once it's printed.  I can't wait to show you the results!

Tomorrow I'm going on vacation with my family to the beach! While there I'm going to work on ghosts masks like the ones my girls wear.  I plan on coming back and taking pictures with my holga camera of girls wearing them.  It feels good to have real plans for once!

I'll try to update while on vacation... meanwhile have a good weekend!

Grey Gardens

Wow! I just saw the new Grey Gardens movie based on the ladies from the Grey Gardens documentary.  Since I'm such a huge fan of the documentary I was a little worried to watch this movie but I was hearing good things and the trailer looked so great.  Well, I was not let down.  It was a beautiful and amazing movie.  I think I cried through most of it. All of my friends are in love with the Edies.  They are these amazing, charming, strange, bizarre, sad, happy women.  I know what my halloween costume will be next year.  

I hope you will please check out both of these films. Definitely watch the documentary first if you haven't seen it. It will charm the homemade skirt off of you.

Coffee Stained

Here's a tragic story... At the beginning of the summer I spent a lot of time coffee staining a bunch of papers and envelopes. I had all these amazing collage materials and couldn't wait to get started making stuff.  Since I was taking monoprinting classes at frogman's I figured I could take all my collage materials with me so I packed them all up in a grocery bag.  The day before I left I was frantically trying to load my car and clean it out at the same time.  Short story short, I threw away my whole bag of collage materials!  It makes my stomach hurt to think about it. Not only was it my stained papers but it was also a ton of wallpaper patterned paper that I screen printed myself.  So many things I threw away!!  

Needless to say I've been spending the last few days staining more papers.  The pictures above are the papers in the casserole dish and then laying out to dry.  The picture below is a collage I was working on before the tragic incident.  I'm trying to view this positively.  Maybe I can push my work in a new place and get out of my wallpaper pattern comfort zone... at least for now. Next up, screenprinting patterns!

Swap Meet

One of the great things about Frogman's is that everyone is eager to exchange art.  I scored so many great pieces while I was there and want to share them with you.  So here goes...

This is a piece by Taylor McClure, a student at North Texas in Denton.  I loved Taylor's work, it was hard to pick only one piece.

This piece is by Jon Vogt.  He's going to Tamarind in the fall.

One of the things that happened the first week at frogman's was drawings for faculty work.  I usually never win drawings so imagine my surprise when I won this print by Mark Sisson.  It's a beautiful woodcut and i believe it's nickname is Bitch Dog.

This amazing woodcut is by Andy Burkitt.  He was on of the assistants and is going to be starting grad school at the University of Georgia in Athens in the fall.

I love this print by Richard Wenrich.  It's actually him dressed in drag.  He goes to George Mason University.

Dennis Mcnett was on of the teachers the second week.  He taught a relief class that combined both print and sculpture.  His class shared a room with mine so I got to keep an eye on all the fun they were having.  Dennis is an amazing artist and a very kind person.  He printed shirts for everyone the whole week he was there and gave away prints to his students.  I was lucky to get a chance to trade with him.  I love this wolfbat print.  Check out his website.

One of my best friends, Katy Seals, assisted this year also.  She makes amazing work and tons of it.  She's always so generous with her prints, quick to give them away to whoever wants them.  I've always admired her attitude about artmaking. I'm very excited to have on of her newest prints.  Katy is starting grad school at Oklahoma in the fall.

My good friend Adrienne Miller got to come for a week and it was so exciting to see her! She brought me this print from Hatch Show Print where she used to intern and her boyfriend currently works.  I love this poster!

Hannah Campbell, another assistant, had so many amazing intaglio prints.  It was such a pleasure meeting Hannah and I'm very excited to have some of her work.  She goes to grad school at LSU and has an etsy shop here.

John Hancock is someone a lot of people look up to and admire.  He was Katy Seal's undergrad professor and they both share the same attitude about art.  John is always quick to give away his work.  I love this piece.  Check out John and his brother's website.  These guys are amazing artists and amazing people. 

I got to be good friends with Emily Cummings from California.  We had a class together first week and I really admired the way she made work.  It encouraged me to start thinking about artmaking differently.  I'm excited to have some of her work.  I got a piece last year an now have this new one for my Emily Cummings collection!

Chris Wallace was another assistant that I got a piece from.  This lithograph print is amazing and beautiful.  It's a drawing of a homemade tattoo gun and Chris even made his own working gun to draw from.  Chris goes to Kansas City Art Institute and I'm hoping he will be an NIU grad student soon.

Last but definitely not least is a print by Anita Jung.  As I mentioned in a previous blog I assisted Anita in the monoprint class the first week.  Anita is such an amazing artist and one of the most positive people I've met.  She has such an amazing energy that's very inspiring.  Anita gave me this piece when she saw all my ghost work.  It's a folded print, the top picture is the outside and the bottom image is the inside.

Wow.  So that's my collection.  There were definitely more pieces I would have love to have nabbed but I get a little shy about trades.  It can be intimidating because you don't want to put people on the spot.  What if they don't want your work?! What if they hate your work?! What if they - gasp!-- say no?!  But I'm very pleased with all these piece.  What do you think? What's your favorite?

Wonderful Surprise!

Things in beautiful party land have not been the great recently.  I've been dealing with some personal stuff that makes life feel sort of crappy right now.  But something has definitely put a smile on my face.  When I got back from frogman's I had a package waiting for me filled with all kinds of fun and beautiful goodies. Maria-Therese of afiori is responsible for sending me this lovely package.  I may have been having a rough couple of days but all I have to do is look at all these great things and remember there are really amazing people in this world.

I did not completely disappear...

Oh my oh my. Remember when I use to write on here and then one day I disappeared?  Let me explain.... I meant to explain before I left but me being my usual self I spent about two days running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to figure out how to pack and leave town for three weeks.  Then I got in my car and drove for eight hours to Vermillion, South Dakota.  In Vermillion once a year during the summer a bunch of printmakers go on pilgrimage to Frogman's Print and Paper Workshop.  Click on the link to learn all about it.  It's basically two week-long sessions of workshops based on different printmaking techniques.  I've gone four times over the course of five years but this was my first time as an assistant.  I assisted each week in the monoprint classes.  The first week was for Anita Jung and the second week for Michael Krueger.   They are both amazing artists as you will see if you click on their links.  I learned soo much and met so many amazing people and reconnecting with so many amazing people. I saw tons of enviable art and made some great trades.  I feel like this was really a life changing event for me and I feel so much better for having done it.  

Now I'm back and I'm picking up the pieces of real life.  If you are a printmaker or just an art maker of any kind I highly encourage you to consider checking out frogman's.  It's a really well known workshop that brings in amazingly talented faculty to work in a serious and fun environment.  On Tuesdays nights everyone bowls and Thursday nights are Karaoke.  You can't miss it!

So, if you are one of the few people who are still looking in on my blog thank you for sticking with me.  I promise to not leave without notice again. Keep checking in because when I get my disposable camera developed I will post pictures.  I also want to steal others photos to post on here so I should be pretty active for a bit!