Sanctuary

I just began renting a studio space, and started moving in today. It feels so good, so right, to be moving forward. To have a space. It's on the third floor, in a kind of renovated attic space, which means it's secluded, cozy. There's a narrow stair going up to it which could potentially be a problem with larger art, but it's not a problem right now. As I was walking up the stairs (for the first time of many today), beautiful natural light came down the stair case, and I knew this was going to be my sanctuary, my place of peace. It's what I need to create art. It needs to be a place just for art. People kept trying to convince me to set up a place in my house or something. I know everyone just wants me to save money, but I need this. It's like a sanctuary. I told one of my managers about the news and he told me I have to make sure to get in there, to make time. I know I will. It's already torture to stay away. [gallery]

On Display

Well, it's official. I have graduated. It's a rather strange feeling, but I guess I accept it. The Annual Student Exhibition opens every year during this time at my school, and it highlights senior work in the galleries and studio spaces. I was honored with a very nice location in the French Gallery. Here are some pictures of the display! [gallery]

With some help, I made the shelves myself for this show and the whole effect was even better than I expected. It was great to see the work out of the studio and up in a gallery. If you have a chance, come see it! It will be up most of the summer at 148 Concord St, Manchester, NH. I swear it looks even better in person.

One of my jobs is working for the NHIA gallery, so the past three weeks, the entire gallery staff has been working incredibly hard to get everything up. It is an intense amount of work to organize and arrange everything. Every underclassman has the opportunity to show a piece, along with the 79 graduating seniors each hanging their work. We had the information for about 1200 labels (over 500 underclassmen and over 600 senior pieces). Some of the work was not shown, but it is still a significant show of abut 1000 pieces. Our gallery director had his birthday in the midst of it all, and we made him original, hand screen printed t-shirts.

The opening for the show was May 20th. On May 19th, there was a Preview Party, for which people purchased tickets to see the work ahead of time. The seniors are all there too and it is a kind of a celebration of our student career. It was great to see everyone in front of their work proudly hanging on the wall. A really special time.

Microwaved Wood

I just put a piece of wood in the microwave. I had given it an acrylic wash and thought it might help it dry faster. Good news, it did! Also, made the microwave smell like freshly cut wood. So two wins today. I might be tempted to think I have just accelerated all my art projects, except that pretty much nothing else I anticipate making will fit in a microwave. Perhaps all I really did was discover I need to buy a bigger microwave. It's just as well. I'm sure acrylic fumes cause cancer or something if I use the same microwave for food later. Actually, that's a good point. Wait, why I am telling this story? ...I know I had a different point. Oh, I guess just that's exciting to try something and instantly see results. The transfer process I use is like that. It either works immediately or not at all. It's not like a painting, where I could labor over it for months, ultimately to decide I hate it and it would be better to start over. I mean, designing the image I transfer is more like that. It isn't all instant, which is also good, because I like a good struggle. I know when I'm facing resistance, I'm on the right path. It took me months before my first transfer worked out. I'm stubborn in many ways. I may not (ever) fight with people, but give me a process, a concept, an idea to battle out, and I will wrestle it, give it a run for it's money. In the conflict, there is peace. In the chaos, we find patterns and order. Contrasts and harmonies underline everything in life.

Fear & Hope

Today, I briefly entertained the notion of what would happen if I stopped creating art. It terrified me. I stood in my studio space that I will soon have to vacate, and looked around. I have made so much this year. My current body of work has been a tremendous break through. And that's when I decided this could not be the end. I will continue.  I wrote myself a promise, and I will keep it.

I also realized today what it really means to be a starving artist. I have been thinking about that phase a lot lately. World hunger is such a problem, yet somehow we have been bestowed the title. How have we artist, such a small portion of the population, earned such exclusive rights? I thought maybe it was our idealism, our integrity to our vision, our passion. I thought how we chose to be artists, not to make money, but because we had to create. Those are such grandiose ideas though. Tonight, I skipped dinner to finish a photo project. Then I delayed food farther to complete a transfer, that wasn't for anyone but myself. And I realized I am starving, not due to lack of resources, as I always assumed the phrase referred to, but because I wanted to create art more than I wanted to eat.

Whenever there is an opportunity to fear,  there is an equal opportunity to hope. If I am willing to starve for art, then surely there is hope that this passion will carry me farther than art school. I've always known I did not choose the easiest path, nor will I ever choose the path of least resistance, but the resistance will make me stronger. No pain, no gain. I am not afraid.

Tin Foil

I love to explore alternative photographic processes. It always seems like I have more ideas than time. I'm currently working on kind of a side body of work involving prints on tin foil. I made a contact sheet this week:

The images are made up of translucent recycled objects that I scanned as negatives, and then overlaid with some pin hole camera images. Yes, I'm trying to see how many processes I can really use in one body of work. I am such a process person. I get excited by new ways to create images.

I formally presented my work this morning to a group of artists. I got somewhat nervous right before hand, but once I started talking, everything fell into place. One of the artists commented that I am a very intellectual painter, and it was really nice to hear some positive feedback. I do put a lot of thought into my work. I always have to be careful that I do not over think things, which is why I try to work impulsively, quickly, and slightly rashly.

New York

I went to NYC yesterday. I always find the experience overstimulating! There is so much to see, and that's just in the museums and galleries. I need to go for a long period of time at some point. I went with a group from the New Hampshire Institute Art and had such a great time. We visited the Aipad show, and there was so much fantastic photography. An amazing variety, really. I was excited to see some of Maggie Taylor's work. She has definitely been a huge influence on me, especially when I first started photography. That may seem weird, since I don't think she uses an actual camera all that much, but I've always found her inspiring. I instantly recognized some tree images by the Starn Twins, two brothers that I've been looking at lately.  I also discovered some amazing work by Jacques Bedel, a new artist to me. The presentation was particularly interesting to me. These images were of clouds, printed on layers of plexi, and suspended off the wall so that the light projected the image on the wall behind it. The idea was very similar to some of things I've tried, since I work on glass, and other translucent materials. A huge advantage to the plexi was how light weight it was. I could see it moved slightly with the breeze from the air vents, and he had it hung with a simple eye hook. My work tends to be heavy. The glass works better than plexi with the transfer process I use--it's a little more clear--but I loved how the plexi worked for his images. There were so many other artists, this barely touches the surface. I went through several times, each time finding new images and artists. It was hard to absorb everything, but I loved it. Afterwards, I went to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). I haven't actually been there before, so I thought it would be good. I wanted to go to the Guggenhiem, and see the Francesca Woodman exhibit, but time was against me, as it so often is. The MoMA houses so many notable pieces, such as Monet's Waterlilies, and it was almost weird to see them in real life. Van Gogh's Starry Night had a line of people waiting to take pictures with it, like it was a celebrity or something. It didn't sit well with me. That painting in particular, because I heard he painted shortly before attempting suicide. His work, to me, is filled with such turmoil, it is difficult to look at. So much of the art in the MoMA is like that. Most of the artists were considered very avant-garde during their time. The impressionists were the rebels of their day, rejected by the Salon, and now their work is printed in hotel room lobbies. Of course, at this point in the day, I was also quite overestimated, and it was hard to focus on anything more than a few moments.

I wonder about the necessity of being in a city to be an artist. Whenever I visit, I simultaneously think that I could never live there, and I could thrive there. It seems like there are too many people. I frequently found myself looking for empty spaces rather than inspiring art, but I am sure that is something I could cope with in time. On the flip side, being among so many is liberating, because you can surge with the crowd, blend into the mass. The choice to be lonely or to be noticed can be made every moment. I am not sure I am explaining myself properly, but I think my mixed feelings stem from the fact that I am fairly equally introvert and extrovert, and draw my energy from moments of solitude as well as moments of company. Ultimately, though, I would miss the land. I remember even during my brief one-month stay in Athens, I rejoiced at my visits to the mountains and country side. The city is great place to visit, but I don't want to live there. That may mean I will have to work harder and it may cost me to some extent, but I chose to be an artist because I wanted to do what I love, not because I wanted to get rich quick.

Paper Plane

It's been one of those long weeks, where seconds, hours and days ceases to be a relevant to means to measure the passage through time. There's a moment each time I start a new piece of art, that I consider abandoning it. Sometimes a piece may have many of these moments, but it always happens at least once. I have to decide if the image is worth working on further or not. Determine if something is a lost cause. This week had several moments where I considered it a lost cause, yet it continued on, and I think some good will come of it in the end. This is one of the parts of the piece I'm currently working on:

I found a scrap of paper in my desk the other day on which I had written, "Carry me away on a paper plane." It was receipt tape, so I must have written in back in high school when I worked retail. I tend to write little lines like that down fairly often, but now I have a note book so I can find these thoughts again. Art always seems so much like a puzzle to me. I have to find all the pieces and make them fit.

Day Two

So, this site has been up an entire day and with it, a great feeling of self accomplishment. I would have done this years ago had I realized how satisfying it could be. I'm going to try to keep this blog purely artistic, which will be difficult since there is a significant overlap between who I am and what I do. I will give it the old college try though! Here's an image from my studio space. I was playing around with untraditional hanging styles. Not sure I'll go with it for my next show, but maybe eventually, when my body of work is more significant. I like the idea of layering art work and I think it would work well with my art, because I layer things in my art.

Here We Go...

So, I did it. Created a website, or a blog, or whatever this is. Check that off my master "To  Do" list. Now I am official, because everything on the internet is legit. I have a feeling it will take some frustration to make this really work, but for now, I am pleased. To see some of my current work, check out my flickr account.

And stay tune for more things to appear right here. Peace out,

Kiera