Pat, Jessica, Jennifer exchange

entering the books is very exciting, viewing changes, morphs, additions, pages that 'stall' and then suddenly get new life in another's hand's... watching the layers build with dtritus, cast off's scraps, sewn together, buttoned up... We are creating instant ephemeral art moments that can slip away as easily as a dream.

It is fun to drop a new sketchbook into a puddle..something we might go to any length to avoid...

some of this verges on icon breaking, desecration... mostly the participants are respectful and worry that 'they have gone too far'... others can not enter at all.. it is about boundaries.. what we have been taught 'don't write in your books' don't doodle in you rlibrary books...

I am hoping to get some written reactions to this process from others.. just to see!

Jessica Jennifer more pages

Shared critique: Dylan Klempner

pair/share...I thought these ill fated matchings of artists, performers etc.. the awareness of my initial resistance to investing in this type of critique came up right away...

there was no way for me to bring that baggage with me in reading, viewing, experiencing the work of Dylan Klempner.
I was a little intimidated by the clarity of his spirit, his generous nature, his persistant commitment to finding a path that does not take from others, his desire to dream of a world that resounds with abundant spirit...
The writing is deep and speaks of long aquaintance with a life closely examined and held in bright light of direct experience. This is not a second hand version of a quest... It is an open question arising from wanting to live harmoniously in a world where there are many things that are out of balance.

After writing a bit back and forth, we decided to create a space for a long term conversation to evolve around our ideas about the experience of our respective paths and its relationship to our studio practice.

I read his poems and I feel the wind pick up, I see the light... he seems to be willing to record the smallest moments and hold them true. There is room for the reader to come in, it is not all sewed up, he asks you into a space to take a look.
In some ways I am reminded of the angels in Wender's "Wings of Desire". I wonder whether he experiences the distance, the gap between himself and those around him. I wonder if the light surrounds him and makes him one with all things.
During the residency, we both attended Danielle Boutet's presentation and were struck by compelling ideas of sacred and profane. At one point after a students comment, Danielle advanced the idea of the danger of perceiving everything sacred. I could feel the ripple in my psychic field... how would that be a bad thing? Why must there be the great divide, the gap between sacred and profane? So, I have to read the book too!

www.dylanklempner.com

observation of mutable reality of the visable world engaged in a symbolic way

art..visual conventions..rhetorical realism.. art based on the narratives sanctioned by the leaders of the time...art

dip dip dip dipdipdipdip

Dipping, coating the wax models... so much work.. silica dust seems to get into every thing.. I have most of the coating done on one complete torso and I am close to being ready to cast it. I have two more complete torsos in the dipping stages and each coating takes about 15 minutes to do. Once or twice a day, I go to the sculpture studio and complete this part of the process and then clean up the dipping area. Of the various tasks involved with producing a lost cast bronze casting, I think the dipping is the most labor intense, most capricious in terms of forgetting it is art and just physically handling this massive object that could be dropped or bumped at any moment, and boring beyond boring. Yet, if I am not mindful, I could make a bad decision and the coating would be uneven and then I would lose the whole damn thing.
In the lost wax set, I had to let go of what I wanted to see in the first set of figures and remake the torsos in what I could salvage from the pile of broken, melted and sagging wax pieces. This business of letting go of hundreds of hours of work that is pure labor with very little inspirational impetus is very challenging. It goes with the giving up of precious art in the sketch books as well.

Today, during the sketch book exchange, we discussed the possibility of collaborating on some sculptural forms that are evolving from the work in the books~ so that would be cool.

I posted my Packet one for G3 and I feel sort of tired. I am going to see a movie from the environmental film festival today, so I'd better get moving!

Sketchbook Exchange

These are some sample pages from the shared sketchbook project. Invited artists work on the sketchbook adding text, collage, dimensional form, etc and then pass it along! Artists included in the project do not own the journals, but can photocopy pages in progress.

Lost in wax

lost in wax

I have been trying to post work that was lost during a studio accident. Three pieces in progress were melted as a result of the unusually cold weather and the subsequent blast of heat from the studios heating ducts! I had taken these images before leaving for my residency at graduate school. This is the second time I have lost weeks of work in the wax stage, so I have decided to start a page of the torsos that were lost and compare them to the new pieces reconstructed from the pile of melted sections of wax. I approached the salvage work in a more direct way, not so concerned about perfect surfaces, and allowing the repairs to inform the new surfaces. Structurally, it is hard to say if I lost the directness and immediate response to the fresh sections of torn wax.. but that is not an issue. I am fine with having the pieces look as though 'something has happened to them"...

work in progress

this is a two part bronze piece cast in lost wax process. Up to this point, the pieces have been conceived as standing alone, mostly shown in typical gallery settings, white pedestals etc. I am working on a series figures that would be installed in groups to have something relational within the piece and the observer as being outside the group.