Reading List

10/01/2012

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What books shall one take on a creative retreat? Growing up in a household with two librarians, it stands to reason that this might be the first item addressed when planning for some quiet time among the evergreens. Below is the list:

My Antonia | Willa Cather 
The Spell of the Sensuous | David Abram
Holy Bible (NRSV)
American Visions | Robert Hughes
The Picture of Dorian Gray | Oscar WIlde
The Book of Common Prayer
The Gift | Lewis Hyde

Some are to reference and some to inspire. Some are there as a reward for waiting so long and some to make good on my claim of being the type of friend one might want to have.
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An Unnecessary Apology for Protracted Silence

09/01/2012

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Almost every blog that I frequent has, at one time or another, apologized for a period of inactivity, which is a behavior I've honestly puzzled over as it could imply a few things. 

1. The author of the blog understands that they have a readership and wishes to maintain a convivial exchange with said readership.
2. The author of the blog assumes the readership will have noticed or be disillusioned by the inactivity on the site.
3. The author of the blog presumes that the blog medium inspires a sort of fickle reading relationship where new content is the primary reason for readership in the first place.

And then there's number 4, which I believe is where I fall:

4. The author of the blog wishes to assuage their own guilty feelings over prolonged inactivity by assuming an audience, thereby having a rationale for apology to someone apart from just themselves. 
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Art at a Beach House (in Prose)

07/04/2011

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What sort of art might you expect to find in a three-story, ten bedroom, luxury beach house get-a-way? In one word: plenty. Here's a partial inventory of the works on display in one such house along the Outer Banks of North Carolina. . .
  • a poly-chromed balsa wood tug boat balancing precariously on two wooden balls and missing at least five tires
  • one abstract acrylic painting photographed and printed on board with an umber orange sky and cream scumbled ground separated by a blue line leaking blood down the left side of the composition (the upper right corner of the sky also pierced and bleeding towards land)— all coated with a pebbly application of gel medium and floating in open black frame
  • two teapot sized ceramic shells with milky smooth cavities
  • Photoshopped mono print triptych of palm tree crowns matted in a frame meant to emulate the texture of a palm trunk
  • mounted print of gel medium rendered palm tree stoically saluting a white nothingness bordered in a distressed Venetian frieze of botanical shapes
  • black glass planter with torn sheets of gold leaf entombed below the surface
  • 4' canvas print of a painting showing a Tuscan village tucked among rolling hills: with real paint highlights applied on top to emphasize sun washed roof lines and flowery fields
  • earthenware jellybean-shaped vase with black nipple
  • two cast plastic Florentine roundels with antique bronze finish in similarly finished frames (like ficticious spoila from the ceiling of an Old World ballroom; very opulent)
  • black and gold paper collage with cardboard bits arranged in gridded pattern before painted with gold and mounted on a generous expanse of black paper (signed in gold pen with pink marble mat and bronzed frame)
  • botanical watercolor reproduction of a lemon yellow tropical flower with the artist's signature mostly obscured by off-center and crooked maroon mat
  • three poly-chromed ceramic fish on wooden plinths
  • ceramic cast of a wicker basket with dark brown undertone accented with rubbed gold paint on high points (and gold glitter on bottom of the interior)
  • two white serving trays displayed on end with primary and secondary color stripes framing a center image of a schooner and white beach lounge chair in the shoals, respectively
  • two inkjet printouts of Roman planters with ripped edges (the edges painted black) floating over carved styrofoam blocks painted to resemble stone, all of which sits atop gloss black corrugated card stock in a shadowbox with gray marbled mats and burnished white gold frames

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Back to the Beginning

02/23/2011

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Picture
In the studio with great regularity now to prepare for a show in May. The past three days have included:

-making a bruise of the sky
-structuring a new website and blog
-cutting small panels to fit a selection of found frames
-reacquainting myself with the leafing process
-freeing my fingers of fingerprints 
-pleading with the Burnt Umber
-pulling paint
-erasing away the unforeseen traces
-writing a press release

And now I am just waiting for the snow to fall.
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