Grad School...

maybe...
-SVA
-James Madison
-Tisch
-Tufts
-University of Maryland
-Pensacola Christian College Division of Communicative Arts
-SCAD
-Arizona State

"Seven Days" Reading- Chapter 3

-The quality of "invisible" architecture for an Art Fair creates an environment worthy of the art-in this case Art Basel's main exhibition space is a black glass box on the outside and a clear-glass circular courtyard on the inside-ceilings are high enough for them to go unnoticed, the walls are strong enough to hold heavy work, and the quality of lighting is clean and natural

-Don Rubell on experience with collecting "First if an artist is going to make one good work, then there is no sense in fighting over it. Second, a collection is a personal vision. No one can steal your vision."

-What is collecting art for the right reasons?? Love of art, desire to support artists-not about being rich, privileged, and powerful. Collecting is an "art" itself-a lifetime process. Rubell's attitude is that it's a privilege-there is more to it than the money. They truly love art.

-Barbara Gladstone is not about just selling work-to differentiate genuine collectors from speculators she would rather have in-depth discussions about the artist's work- it is very hard to do at the fair

-"Hard buy" Galleries don't just surrender work to the first comer or highest bidder. Demand for a work takes consideration of how prestegious a location is-the goal is to enhance the artists reputation.

-Galleries discover and develop artists, dealerships trade in art objects

-Artists don't view the Art Fair the same as gallery owners or collectors. John Baldessari,artist, doesn't like that quality of art depends on the monetary value. He wants to do his own thing and change his art whenever he wanted not base it on a "market"

Marvelli Gallery

I chose a exhibition of photographs by Mariah Robertson. Her works are considered to be experimental dark room prints that are impossible to replicate. They are very rich and saturated in color and appear paint-like at times from her washes of chemicals. They balance between being representational and abstract with layers of quilt patterns, palm trees, city streets, cars, and nudes.

What drew me to the work was that it was obvious that it was more about the process than the image. You can see the layers-the guts of the process of making the image. Where as I feel I have a very calculated approach to putting together an image, Robertson is very care-free and experimental. She is not afraid to let it get messy.

"Seven Days" Reading- Chapter 6

- In order to maximize his impact and pursue a number of interests Murakami also runs a company- Kaikai Kiki Co. Ltd. and he was responsible for a lot of the Louis Vuitton designs. He really isn't interested in the company, but needs it as a means to make more and more and bigger and bigger pieces.
-Murakami has painting assistants that he oversees. They do the painting and document the layers for him to see. But he does have a desire for these assistants to atleast be able to launch their own careers
-He has another studio in New York linked to his studio in Japan by iChat- both similar: tidy, white walled, and silent
-Murakami says his weak point is he can't work on just one thing at a time. He gets bored doing only one project. I think that's true of many artists.
- "Anywhere, anytime." Murakami does not have a preferred thinking space or a "heart" of his studio. A studio is supposed to be a site of intense contemplation, but Murakami insists he can do that anywhere.
-Murakami has no real home, just a bed in his studios. He works long hours all week and just naps. He is really into his work.

Exhibition Review

I went out with the intention of going to the George Billis Gallery in Chelsea because I wanted to look at Adam Normandin's work. His very geometric approach to painting highly detailed trains and engines caught my eye because my work has very much to do with detail. When I arrived the gallery was closed, but I ended up finding 2 other shows in particular that I found even more interesting.

The first was at the Nancy Margolis Gallery- Maysey Craddock. Her work consisted of architecture and nature in which most of the buildings or telephone lines were being taken over by roots and plants. The images were based on photos, but she had simplified them down to their essentials. The forms become a little more abstract in their reduced form, but her hand is soft in the background and layering techniques so that the beauty is not lost in the hard edges of all the shapes. The photograph of the area is what drew her in, but she wanted to see what her hand could express out of it. I found myself agreeing with that for my own work. I have these cityscape images and they are so complex and beautiful, but I like seeing what I really see once I start to put my own hand to it. I want my painting to resemble the architecture, so I don't want it to become abstract in that regard, but the way I unmake and remake the buildings by the forms that I see with my eyes becomes a really abstract process.


At Axelle Fine Arts I saw a large show of Albert Hadjiganev. Also someone who considers himself a minimalist, Hadjiganev captures the moments of daily life and landscapes with only a few elements. He paints almost sensitively. His hand is soft on the canvas. He uses a palette knife and seems to wipe away most of the detail to create a mysterious environment filled with grace. The images are dream like. He had a few cityscapes too. They had a sketchy unfinished quality with attention to flatness and space, reserving the most detail for the foreground or places to draw your attention and wiping out other parts softly to push them back. It was interesting because I tend to paint everything in my cityscapes so the idea of wiping things out is something I may try.

Interview with Fran Eber

AM: So what you just said is you like to break it down and then make a small area bigger and bigger?

FE: Right to actually take a small image and blow it out, to keep growing something so that I can understand this small tiny little piece of information rather than just what the whole looks like. That may be the whole of it, but in terms of what I'm looking for, I'm looking to break down the tiniest infintessional piece of it and then I can then recreate it in my own terms, not resemble it. I want to deconstruct it as well, but not reconstruct it the same way. Like if I was deconstructing a body, I'd put the feet on the top. So that it really doesn't resemble what the original looked like or have the original intention, but it could now represent what I want it to mean.

AM: So where does the subject matter come from? Did you start with photography before you painted? Or was it a dual pursuit?

FE: No, its actually, I used to be in advertising and graphic design so that was behind it-and only a few years ago I started painting. And in the process of painting I found -the the world of advertising and design while the commercial aspects, while its lucrative- it just wasn't enough. So I really wanted to look at “what else”. Cause you know life is short, what the hell, you know you just kind of gotta do what it is you feel is necessary to your own existence and so painting was that way. I dabbled in painting and photography and artist book. I mean, I sort of wanted to see where I fit and saw there was pieces of each that could belong to me or that I could belong to. So I'm not discounting anything. It's like I'm letting everything be ok. While photography-I think that stems off of that advertising mentality- to commercialize the image and to do that make the image super important. The importance is no longer the image the importance is the lines the space between the lines- what it is, is no longer important.

AM: So when you lay this down you have an image in mind- Do you use one of your photographs?

FE: I have an image in mind and I'm sort of recreating that image, but sort of as quickly as my hand will do it so that I'm not restrained by it. I don't want to paint it exactly. I want it to free me up. This shows more freedom it shows the hand shows the environment. It works with nature because I use gravity to help pull the paint.

AM: So do you have a process in mind in terms of the colors and how you are going to lay it down or do you just go based on your instinct, which color comes next or what you feel like needs to get added?

FE: I think that the color process at least in terms of photography was valuable but you know I want to sort of lose the color process in the painting part or limit it. To be more restrictive is to have more freedom and to, you know, continue with the photography there's something very satisfying in working with photoshop thats different. It's serving a different part of the creative process and its feeding the simplicity. Cause you know you need to get that out some way.

AM: So are these (Photoshopped prints on canvas) going to become paintings?

FE: These are paintings. I think of them as paintings because the process as they go through as photographs changes them and they are no longer photos. Its digital painting. You get to the point where you get to understand- like you understand the paint brush- the medium and so photoshop and digital tweaking is another type of art. Like with a brush, how you use it and what you can bring into it. But it doesn't replace this (gestures to painting), sometimes the hand needs to move, the hand needs to represent work.