Bamboo #3

Cloud Outside Kyoto #3 Detail

Cloud Outside Kyoto #3

Cloud Outside Kyoto #2

Cloud Outside Kyoto #1

Looks like numbers 1 and 2 are done to me. Hannah is checking my 3rd draft of the thesis, and I just sent back my list for readers. Getting close! Also had the gaul to apply to New American Paintings: Current MFA Candidates. We'll see. I won't hold my breath, but how cool would that be?!!! Had some great help from Rob Sullivan and Julia Mills earlier this semester and ordered my retouch varnish for the thesis show.

2 out of 3 done?

These are 2 of the 3 thesis paintings. I'm feeling pretty good about them. Working with the very kind and knowledgeable Rob Sullivan. These are very shiny in parts. It's a lot of glazes, washes, layers, etc. Planning to hit them both with retouch varnish this fall and bring them to school that way. Mentor David Feinberg talked me into leaving a lot more breathing space in these and I think it works!

August in Thesisville

It's a busy month here in Thesisville! (I'm borrowing that term from Carolyn Rordam from my group, because I love it!) Got my first feedback from advisor Hannah Barrett on the Thesis and it's good! Also working hard on these 3 paintings for my thesis show. Lots of layers, the 2 groundview paintings I'm starting to paint the forrest floor.

Also teaching "Creating Personal Landscapes" my first class at the Bloomington Art Center next week. Hard at work preparing a thrilling lecture with images from April Gornik (of course!), Peter Doig, Vija Celmins, Gerhard Richter, and a bit of the Hudson River School for perspective. I will teach the class again in the fall and will also be co-teaching a creativity and movement class at the Jewish Community Center this fall in St. Louis Park. Not quite sure how that class is going to go but will keep you posted!

July, Semester 4

Getting started on 3 large paintings (48 inches wide by 36 inches tall) for my thesis show. All 3 will be the bamboo setting with clouds. The first 2 will be very similar so I'm only posting 1 for now. The last one is looking up. Lots of layers on these already. Lots of thin transparent oily layers hence the high shine and the white outs from my lights on the sides of each.

Almost Group 4.... Finally!

OK. This one is done. "Our Lord's Candle" is the real name of a giant flowering plant in the desert. Instead of doing more work for this semester residency I have started working ahead for next semester. I have a very strong feeling about that cloud in bamboo painting from this past semester... April Gornik loved it, and it just got chosen for the Boston Young Contemporaries so I feel strong about working ahead on my thesis stuff.

There will be 3 large bamboo paintings, 30 x 40 inches each. With the amount of detail that goes into each one, I think it's a good idea to get a jump on this. This one shows some reference photos in the upper right corner. I did those last fall. I literally had my brother walking around the woods with a smoke bomb while I photographed him.

Jeffrey says I have to keep up the blog...

This painting is 36 x 20. It's a larger version of a painting I did for the 3rd residency. One I felt didn't get the attention it deserved. It's slow and tedious, but Tony Apesos said, "wow, you still don't know how to paint a field do you," so I'd like another crack at a crit with him...

I am starting 3 large paintings I intend to be my thesis show. They will be 3 large bamboo paintings with clouds. 30 x 40. That should fill up my allotted space for the thesis show. Also, working on my rough draft for the thesis. I ok'd working with previous mentor David Feinberg for another go round this fall. This seems slightly audacious (starting the work and the thesis), but then again it appears to me that as far as art school goes, good crits and work favor the bold and the brash.

Attended the Lucy Lippard talk at the University of Minnesota last month. Attended the CAA conference in Chicago in February. Also, have been in touch with art historian and paranormal investigator Adrian Lee, Ph D. I am looking to curate a show of artwork about the paranormal in Minneapolis some time in 2011.

Weeks 17 & 18. Final Paintings

I tweaked this one a bit and it's done. Dark mood. No weird little hidden things. Just blue/black/white and a blurry photo.

This one was supposed to be a blurry side of the road photo. I am thinking it will be a bit too subtle for the AIB people, but we'll see. There's a small projectile in the upper left. The construction fence, etc.

I call this one Wil-o-the-Wisp. Trying to get that blurry, ominous side of the road image with the small unnatural globes of lights. See detail below.

That's a wrap for the 3rd semester. I hope I get to go to school in January.