Night of Rioting Women

Here's another biggie that I painted in tandem with the last piece I posted about.

It's 48 x 48 inches, and I had a lot of fun with the paint on this one.

First couple layers were put on diagonally.

I didn't want to repeat exactly the technique from the large piece, but I wanted to keep them related, so I pushed thick paint around the surface with my big paint brush.

 The color was too much like the other one (I did use much of the same paint at the same time), so I covered it in a black wash and did some major sanding to reveal the texture.

Here I was trying out colors and thought about going with orange.  Nope.

 Here's the progression of the orzos.  A big sweep to some crazy tiny ones.  I used some guide lines made of vinyl to keep myself in check if I started to go astray.

The top third took me a few days to finish, and I largely cut all the orzos by hand.

detail

 The black vinyl is quite shiny and sort of impossible to take a picture of in my working environs, and I just use a little point and shoot camera, so I plan to get some more professional shots taken to do it justice.  I also might sand over the top to matte the surface--still thinking about it.  They're all living things.

Night of Rioting Women, 48 x 48, 2018

A friend saw this and said it reminded him of a dress with a v-neck bodice.  I've been thinking about that and came across a poem (the same from the last post, actually) with this line in it and the pairing makes sense to me.  

"The midnight reeled with laughter of rioting women and men,
Sleek waiters tiptoed after and brimmed the glasses again,
Till the night was blare of ragtime and red with lust and pain.

For this is the brood of the cities, elegant, debonair,
Men with the scars of license and women with shoulders bare--
But I have swung in the saddle and swallowed the prairie air."

From "A Challenge to Youth" by Willard Wattles, 1916

Wide Winds Winnowed Sweet

Hey, there. 

I've been away for a while.  But that's because I've been making things!  And traveling!  So...enjoy the upcoming posts of some works while in progress.

Here's a biggie.  

I think I started working on this one back in March.  I took advantage of a nice day or two before it got cold again to paint this 48 x 48 inch piece.  I first primed it, then spread on a thick layer of blues.  While the paint was wet I dragged an old brush through it to give some texture.

Close up.

I painted it a light blue/white and sanded it to reveal the texture better.  Those steps were not recorded (sorry).

Blue and green were calling out to me, but when I started I ended up adding the colors in too-thick of blocks.  So after a while of putting on orzos, I actually peeled many off and shuffled the colors more.

Kinda blocky going from light green, green, blue, to light blue.

 Maybe you can tell from the photo that I mixed them up more.  I just know I spent a lot of time putting on things and then peeling them off and putting on more.

Finished piece, "Wide Winds Winnowed Sweet"

detail

The title comes from a poem called "A Challenge to Youth" by Willard Wattles, 1916...

"Lo, this is the song I shape you, a song for the strong and fleet,
A sword for the arms that wrestle with slippery shocks of wheat,
A flag of the dreams of Kansas by wide winds winnowed sweet."

There's a lot of military imagery in the poem, and dichotomies between cities and the prairie, and I am not a literary critic, so I won't be breaking it down.  Honestly, I just like the idea of sweet winds blowing around tree limbs.

Neighbor

I do not currently have any neighbors who disguise themselves as humans but underneath are good-natured trolls...so I had to make one!  I'm not entirely certain why I titled this one Neighbor, but I'm sticking with it.  Seems delightfully open to interpretation.

Before first firing.  I dotted the surface with brown slip for some nice
mole action and liver spots on the skin tags.

Before glaze firing.  I knew the colors wouldn't be this vibrant after it was all
said and done, but oh I wish...

Finito!  Recycled clay fired to cone 10 with mason stains
and oxides.

I used the Clay Guild's "G White" glaze on the lips to bring out some of
the iron in the clay.

This is the biggest face I've made so far, about 9 inches wide.  I'm looking forward to going larger but I need to complete the ones I have still ready to be glazed before I move on.

Squinty Old Man and Dopey Kid

I made a couple of pieces that ended up looking like they were related...or even different versions of the same guy.  Process shots!

Dopey Kid:

Before first firing.

Glazed but not fired yet.

Finished!
9 x 5 x 3 inches

And the older version, Squinty Old Man:

Still wet clay.

Glazed but not fired.

Finished!
5 x 8 x 3 inches

Made of recycled cone 10 clay with oxides and a touch of glaze on the old man's eye.

They hang on the wall and hopefully will find a home soon, either through a gallery show or sale.

Heads and Faces

Our winter had stretches of dreary, cold days (not that unusual) and I just couldn't bring myself to do much else besides make weird things out of clay.  I've been making tumblers, vases, and mugs, but I've had a hankering to get back to my sculptural roots lately.  So this year I'm focusing more on funny little characters...

He looks kind of big here, right?
(He's still new and wet.) 

He is not.

 I started to play around with oxides and stains to add color and highlight the gnarly textures these quick studies had.  Most of these are experiments and maybe I'm not done with them yet...but here are some more from that first little batch: 

More before pics.

Dunked in yellow salt glaze.

Manganese wash.

Rutile wash.

Gifts of Art

Hey, there.  Been awhile.  I've been hibernating.

But I'd like to share a cool thing!

The University of Michigan Med Center has a program called Gifts of Art where they install art, rotating four times in nine galleries, throughout the hospital. There are also musical performances and lunchtime concerts.  It's free to apply (YOU SHOULD IF YOU'RE AN ARTIST!) and I thought, why not?  Let's try it.  

So I was selected to have my work up from mid-December to mid-March.  I made a ton of work (see most recent blog posts) to fill a corridor that is 100 feet long.

panorama

It was a very long and narrow hallway, but said to be the largest gallery space.

photos by Adrian Wylie

And, of course, these works were all for sale, and I SOLD A FEW!  Hot Brazen Heavens, Spring's Promise, Crooning Cottonwoods, and Crickets' Din are all going to live at another hospital--Henry Ford West Bloomfield, in the maternity ward!  Isn't that cool?  A portion of the sale goes back to the GoA program to help sustain and find more great artists looking for opportunities to show their work.  

Bring Treasure, Crooning Cottonwoods, Sweet Sons/Sturdy Daughters

Crickets' Din, Hot Brazen Heavens, Miles and Miles and Miles

Spring's Promise, Gardenlands, Make No Peace With Trouble

I was also asked if I would donate an image to help promote the program, and I was happy to do so. (This image is from work that was at the Kemper show, which spring-boarded this whole endeavor in the first place.)

Seriously, apply!

The only down part was that Ann arbor is an 11-hour drive from KC, and if you follow me on Instagram you might have seen a few posts about this...there's a lot of dirt between here and there and a few ice cream places, but I didn't love the trip.  I just wanted to get home and wasn't able to enjoy myself or see much culture.  I'm not a born-road tripper, so this part of the job is always hard for me.  Oh, well!  It's a better job for me than most other things!

I'm so glad I did this and hope to keep pushing myself in this way--making bigger work and trying to show in new places.  Happy Spring!

Made It: Crooning Cottonwoods

This summer I had a piece in a show called Abstract Catalyst at the Verum Ultimum Gallery in Portland, Oregon.  

See that turquoise circle?  Read on to learn more about its birth.

For the background of this one, I applied paint both in a circular pattern (thanks to a lazy Susan) from the center out and then went over it with straight strokes.  All I knew is that I wanted something turquoise-y.

Beginning to lay down the orzos.

Finished product!
Crooning Cottonwoods
30 inch diameter
aluminum, paint, vinyl

detail

When I applied for this show, I titled it "Prairie Porthole," and that is what it showed under, but I regretted it.  I mean, the leafy-ness of the orzos did make me think of trees, obviously, and the color of the ocean, so I smushed them together.  But then I came across this stanza from the poem "Kansas" by Nicholas Vachel Lindsay:

  The wind would drive the glittering clouds,
  The cottonwoods would croon,
  And past the sheaves and through the leaves,
  Came whispers from the moon.

Pretty great, right?  A name change was required and I'm happy I did it.  It's a small thing but with abstract pieces titles can matter if you want to get a certain narrative started in the viewers' imagination.  I mentioned this in brief blurb in this post.

Also, the gallery used this piece on their promotional mailers, which I didn't find out about until it was returned to me (because it sadly was not purchased) and they included a postcard.