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.

Weeks 15 & 16

This one is done. It's a larger UFO one from the last residency. it's 22 x 28 and Oscar felt it was one of my strong pieces.

I think I'm getting close on this one. It's dark and moody with lots of layers. it's also still fairly wet and glossy, so i might have to varnish or something after the residency

this is a newer one. Just finished reading Modern Painting and the Northern Romantic Tradition, it was a great book and inspired me to work with this. Not sure how it will be received.

This is another UFO one, but I am also doing it a bit more in the style of Richter and his blurry photographs. Not too much to say at this early stage....

Weeks 13 & 14

Finished writing and researching about Gerhard Richter. I was very inspired by his room at the new Modern Wing at the Chicago Institute of Arts! This above painting was originally intended as an underpainting but when I blurred it.... well, it really was fascinating. I touched up some details but left a blurry, hazy atmosphere. It's dark but not as dark as the photos. Included a detail below.

Detail of the bottom of the Richter inspired piece. Painting very dark this semester and it's hard to photograph.

My last bird one... for now. I told my mentor April the last one from a few weeks ago was it, but I forgot I was already working on this one. I think it's done and I think the bird flocks are done. They lost that uncanny/paranormal/extraordinary sense to me.... I guess I feel they are now familiar and I'm ready to move on.

My UFO pieces at the last residency were small. 8 x 10's mostly. I feel a couple of these deserved more consideration so I'm redoing this one larger. You can go find the original somewhere in the Semester 2 blog. This one is around 30 x 24.

This one is exciting to me. Just the right amount of ominous and beautiful. Working on lots of layers and I really like the light vs. dark interaction on the edges.

Weeks 11 & 12

This week found me traveling to Sag Harbor, NY to meet with Super-Mentor April Gornik. She is very insightful and gives awesome critiques that are very helpful. I know some other people have had some difficulties with their big name mentors and I am very lucky and grateful to April. I told her the bird picture I sent out (as seen on the previous blog) was the last one. I forgot I had already started this one.

I think the birds above and these trees are heavily influenced by my paper about Gerhard Richter. I am playing with that soft mostly grey palette. Very eerie indeed.

This UFO painting is coming slowly, but I want it done right. It's been a while since I did a traditional landscape background (blue further back, yellow closer up, etc.). I'm a little rusty with this one.

This last one is an under painting for a new winter scene. Under painting in the compliments didn't help me so using relative colors might.

Weeks 9 & 10

These two are as done as they are going to get before visiting NY mentor April Gornik next week. Layers, layers, and more layers. I need to let them dry, ship them, etc. for a meeting with April on 9/21.

I don' t know about the colors, but this is as far as I can push it before this gets shipped.

On to new stuff, well, newer. I did this image last semester. It was 8 x 6 inches. At the urging of both April and last semester's advisor Oscar Palacio, I am doing this one again but bigger. It's 24 x 20 or so.

This is the start of my last bird flocking painting. Wanted to try one more. It's large and I wanted it all grey. Which leads into my last one below.

This originally started as the under painting for a bamboo forest, but I'm very excited about it. I'm also researching Gerhard Richter. The grey and the fuzzy made me think I was channeling Richter so I'm going to go back into this and make it more like one of his.

Weeks 7 & 8

Had a great phone meeting with my mentor yesterday. Even looking at JPGs online she is extremely insightful. We talked about how to make sure I'm engaged for the entire painting and where and when I am not.

This is a larger one that came together fairly quickly. It's part of my flocking birds series. It's 36 x 24 inches and I'm thinking it's just about done. I have one more bird one planned but I think I might be done with this series.

Still working slowly with layers on this figure in the water.

Working slowly and steadily on this bamboo forrest. Mentor and I agreed to push this one as far as I can and I am still doing trees. I will go back in soon and do all of the little bamboo knots in the trunks.

Weeks 5 & 6

"From the shores of Gitche Gumee..." these first two works are a step back, or sideways. I have to admit I feel great pressure when I paint and it is almost never enjoyable. I don't know if it's school or the idea of showing my work to one of the greatest living landscape artists alive (to my mentor's credit, she never ever comes off this way, she has been nothing but helpful and insightful), but it is a daily struggle. It might be just the difficulty of continuing to push myself.... regardless, I am painting at least 20 hours week, usually more, and continuing to work bigger, with more layers/glazes, and trying to build on the success of last semester. So these first two works are more like what I was doing in the second semester. I wanted to find out what I enjoyed about working like this, and what can I bring to my more "school-minded" works. The work above was totally inspired by one of April's paintings from my visit in July which featured a large centrally placed full moon. Mine is waning... or perhaps waxing.

Magic hour on Lake Calhoun.

Jeffrey Ebeling was kind enough to provide me with some small canvases to experiment on. It's oil ground on linen and canvas respectively. Hannah Barrett provided the small gessoed panel. How better to explore the different surfaces than to do the exact same painting on each?

The figure and the bamboo forrest continue to move slowly and continue to be a challenge. These are more like what I want to have ready for school in January. Ominous. I understand in these more what April talked about to me in July. In her works she talked about a certain "speed" things had. Some parts moved faster, some slower. These are both very slow. Solemn. Maybe too slow. I am not sure how to speed them up as it were.

Weeks 3 & 4

The fire tornadoes are almost done. A group show for the Hinckley Fire Museum gets hung in the middle of the month and this is my entry. My photos aren't looking great with the wet paint/light glare, but hopefully you can get a rough idea.

Continuing to paint slowly and meticulously. Lots of small brushes. It's a much slower, more demanding process.

I like this one a lot. In all of these I'm working on lots of layers. Especially for the fire, the water, the leaves, etc.

Still not quite sure how this one is going to work out, but I do like the general color/mood. This one has probably been the most difficult and is the least finished.