The Big Obelisk is coming to Queens Museum

I have just finished getting all the angles right for the top of my obelisk that will be shown at the queens museum. I still have to work out all of the angles for the obelisk but this pyramid is done. It is the same dimension as the pyramids of the big egyptian ones and will sit on top of the obelisk. This is a pretty stressful project because I know it will be seen by a lot of people and I want it to work out. I am running out of time to work all of the kink out but I know it will get finished. It has to. It really feels good to finish this part of the piece because it was the most complex part for me. I learned a lot or building this or it may be that calculating angles has come back after I thought I forgot how to do basic geometry. Whatever the case I will be building a quarter scale model of the obelisk to make sure I have it right before building the 14 footer. With the pyramid on top the whole sculpture will be about 16 ft tall.

On the note of sculpture, I will have it be known that this is the first piece I have ever made. It is amazing to me how a person like myself who has never considered sculpture an option will be in my first proper NY show with one.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! I thought this image was appropriate for the start of 2009. It is another work that is part of the star theme I have been into for a while. It has a large element of randomness in the process in the way the piece was laid out. For example, I placed random 'dots' on the paper with pen and pencil until I liked the placement and groupings that were created with these points. I then let it 'rest' for a couple of days. I knew there was more that I wanted to do with it because it didn't feel finished and when I got back to my studio a couple of days later I decided that I wanted to fill up the page with markers so I started adding five lines from each point. It reminded me of stars and also of the way fireworks start from the center and work their way outward.

I would also like to mention the use of markers as opposed to paint for this work and many other works i have been making in my series. Don't get me wrong I love paint and what I can make with it but I have been falling in love with the way everyday office materials make marks. The pencil is a regular sight on a desk and is such a versatile tool and has been used for so many different things. The ballpoint ben becomes a little more difficult to manipulate but there is a quality to the way it presses on the paper and the way the ink is released that allows for slight variations even with the same amount of pressure being applied to the mark. I also am infatuated with the way markers are absorbed by the paper. The ink doesn't just sit on the surface but becomes part of the paper and eventually the marker dries up but it still creates a beautiful mark.

Its about stars

My most recent piece after getting back into my studio after a 4 month hiatus turned out better than I was expecting. I had been using the star symbol in my work before the baby was born, but not to the extent that I did in my most recent work. The traditional symbol of a star with multiple points is a quite nice shape and with all the many connotations that accompany a it, a start can mean so many things. Thinking of all the places I see stars including the sky. I can not escape them. There are stars in the entertainment industry, in business, in athletics, in the military. They represent states and countries. And even have their place in religion. With all of these associations, stars are one of the most ambiguous and abstract complex shapes (it has a minimum of 10 sides with 5 points and 5 valleys) I can also forego the entire shape of a star and represent it as just a dot. It then becomes something different while still representing a star. When a star becomes a dot, it becomes a point, and as such becomes even more ambiguous. I think I can play with the concept of stars for a while.

Pictures of me with other peoples work

So, I have been hitting a the equivalent of writers block for an artist. Until I start getting some work of my own to show again on this blog, I will be posting pictures of me with artworks in some of the chelsea galleries. This one is by a fellow Iowa artist Dan Attoe and it is part of a group show at Stellan Holm Gallery.
Back to my problem. My art making has been pretty stagnant for the past 3 or 4 months. I have been finding that expressing the problem is part of the solution for me. It forces me to think about why I am not making work. I have been using the excuse of a recent child but now it is time to get back at it. I started December off with a trip to my studio and a new drawing. The studio seemed like a new environment, divorced from what I new it as before the baby was born. I had to reconnect with the place, find where I had put my supplies, search for the tools I wanted to use, and make it feel comfortable again. It was like catching up with good friend you haven't seen in a while. Everything is the same, but there is the events of the absence that create a new niche in the relationship. This is how I felt to get back in the studio.

A New Approach

So I have not been making a lot of work since the arrival of my baby and the beginning of a full time job. At first I just went with the flow and told myself that once I was settled in with the job and the baby, a new schedule would materialize. Well, that hasn't happened and I don't feel like it will until I make it happen and the best way for me to do that is to address the issue in the blog. I am hoping it that someone may come across this and will be able to relate. Or, it may be able to help someone else that is experiencing the same problems.
The problem of not being able to make work for whatever reason is one that plagues many artists. I have been talking to artists who have children and have been trying to get a sense of how others tackle the task of making art and raising a family. the responses are mixed, but the one that remains constant and should be obvious is the task of doing something that keeps ones mind involved in the art. Drawing tend to be the first one that comes to mind because it can be done with anything that makes marks and on any surface that receives those marks. It is the most transportable and possibly the most immediate. But for some reason drawing is not working for me. I have been avoiding it and I am not sure why. The intent of this blog is to determine what is causing me to refuse to make the work I feel needs to be made. I think this blog is becoming a part of my work in that I have been using it as an online journal in very much the same way I write in my sketchbook. So until The work starts to flow again I will document my tribulation.

Obelisks

In January, my wife and I will be working on a project together which will involve building a 16-20 foot obelisk. Right now we are in the planning stages and are making drawings and starting to build models. The models have proven to be a valuable reference when it come to realizing the drawings. for example, The first idea was to have an 8 ft base that narrows to 6ft at the top, right before the pyramid cap. When it was built, it looked more like an old oil derrick and not as much as a obelisk as first imagined.

The peice needed to be more narrow but still have a solid base so it would not topple over. As can be seen in the photos, the solution was to make an obelisk with a 4 ft base and a 3ft top while adding an 8ft base. This larger base keeps the obelisk stable and adds to the dynamics of the piece in general.

Back to Blogging

This baby in the photo is the reason I haven't posted a blog in about two months. My attention has been elsewhere but I am making an effort to get back at it on a regular basis. I am shooting for three times each week. If you want to know about this picture, it is my boy Dante checking out one of Michael Perone's paintings at his recent show at Michael Steinberg's gallery.

I look forward to your comments to my upcoming posts.