Into the Unknown

In the process of reorganizing my studio space over the winter, I have come across work that I have completely forgotten about.  The Photoshop piece below was created during a time in my life that I wasn't entirely sure what direction I was headed. The piece is a self portrait of sorts, depicting myself surrounded by meaningful images and walking through a doorway to the unknown.  When I came across this piece it made me chuckle because I feel that after almost 10 years I'm currently in the same position. 

 I'm no longer working in Photoshop to convey my thoughts and ideas, but I feel that my palette and subject matter have not changed greatly.  The piece below is from a series of prints that I was working on over the past year, that focuses on the horizon line and the unknown.  It is a three plate monotype that was printed using a gray ink and adding small variations to the ink and plate after each pass.

Art-O-Mat Part II

Shortly after college I started to work in the basement of an art supply store where I spent the days with two other artists checking in new shipments of art supplies.  The basement not only had a multitude of awesome supplies that I would drool over constantly, but it had the most random assemblage of old easel parts, computers, and broken down machines.  An old candy vending machine was one of those old relics.  After a time I would think of ways that machine could be used to distribute some form of art.  Like most of my schemes I quickly forgot about the vending machine and went on to find other things to occupy my time.

In 2008 I came across this company that was taking refurbished cigeratte machines and vending small peices of art.  I am in no way saying that my rambling thoughts in a crowded basement inspired this company to try to bring art to all, in fact Art-O-Mat has been vending artwork for 15 years.  Long before I had even held a pencil to paper and thought that I might want to do this in the future.  I obviously applied and sent my first 50 pint sized paintings to them and the check from the first sale and my first ever sold piece of artwork hangs on the wall in my studio.  The image above is of my next fifty.

I'm still here

I realized it has been a couple months since my big reflection post about getting better at creating and posting work and still I have done a horrible job at putting that into practice.  This is in no way an excuse post, but due to some personal health issues I haven't created much art, much less wanted to.  During the past few months I have done a complete overhaul of my studio space and I'm excited to get back in there and get to work. 

Reflections and Revamp

Ten years ago this May, will mark the day that I crossed the threshold from that very comfortable college bubble to the real world of the day job.  During college I had an insane OCDish plan of where art would take me and along the way it seems that I have drastically changed those plans.  For those of you that don't know, I started my art career desperately wanting to create designs that would change the world.  Needless to say I spent far too much time having fun,  giving into laziness, and not relentlessly chasing that dream.  For the past few years I have realized that I need to stop waiting for art to "take" me somewhere, but to be the one that is controlling the direction of my art.

During the past ten years I have had many frustrations with my art and trying  to become the artist that I always envisioned for myself.  Art became a huge drag and it eventually became a chore to even step foot into my studio.  Over the past few months I have rediscovered the simple joy of making art and sharing my art.  Now I admit, that I need to work on the sharing part, so the hope is that the revamp of my website will help me spread the word about the experience of creating my work.

Recent Monotype

Have started on a series of simple monotypes that are based on the horizon line and the unknown.   I have printed ten that I hope to share and show soon, but for now here is a simple one plate print using different objects to transfer and manipulate the ink.