I Present to You an Artist

Portugal weaving artist Magdalena Abakanowicz caught my eye today while I was reading "Thinking Through Craft," and I think she can be appreciated by everyone. Here fiber work transcends the language to knowledge about fiber. I recommend just looking at her resume (if you don't like her work)! This woman wasn't messing around with her career. Here is a teaser 9 (that is NINE) Biennials'! I am just going to sit in awe over her work for awhile and take it all in. I am left speechless, so I have no words at the moment relating her work directly. I hope my followers take a look at her and enjoy.

Click HERE for her website and HERE for her weavings.

A discussion to help one leads me to help myself

I have spoken about my brother being a world traveler before and how he is taking photos and writing along his way. Now that he is back in the states he is having to edit what he wants to show on his up-coming website. I had the honor tonight to discuss with him about his work.

I can see how he struggles with editing his photos. For one he has many talents, so the way he lives his life is reflected in his photographs. As we were scrolling through many photos of all different people and places I realized that he is capturing the life, the moment, of a person or place that tells a story. I see much of my own work with in his. We both are stopping time interpreting it in our own ways.

It was a long run in a circle with him, as with talking with any artist, because he kept wanting to show me more and more pictures he had taken. (This I have come to find is because they know not how to speak about their work, because they don't know why they make what they do.) What we came up with was that he takes pictures that stress a story. Certain buildings stress a language with the ware-and-tare, certain faces have more of a story to tell (either a tourist or a working man), and the language of water against a surfboard.

It was awesome to see him hit the light bulb of yeah that's why I take the shots I do! It was worth the run around to be able to help him out so he can go in a direction with more meaning the next time he goes abroad. Helping him along with recent readings have lead me to ponder the thought of becoming a teacher of art.

YaowZahhhhh!

Um I didn't realize the trip I am about to travel... Now that I have my license I am now driving up to Maine for my exciting summer course. What I didn't realize were the hours that I will be spending in a car... by myself...

I will give the low down.

The course ends on a Friday and MICA classes start up on the following Monday (or Tuesday... either way I have work on Monday in Baltimore, but need to be back ASAP to get my things out of storage). From Maine to Baltimore is 13 hours! I will be passing through 8 states in one day! Usually when this happens I am in the back seat sleeping. Now I know how my mother feels. OH! AND the car that I will be traveling in is a 1990 something Honda that only drives well on flat plains. So um yeah... that maybe my down fall?... knock on wood!

Now that I am thinking about the route I may just take my sweet time and stop in Boston. Seeing as I have never been. Maybe this will be more of a learning experience then what I have planed out? Who knows?

All I know for now is that I am going to start restoring my ipod for the trip with good music!... and maybe try out driving to Jersey most the way. You know test drive... it's only an 8 hour drive from North Carolina.

I Present to You a Website

Hehehe This website is great! I kinda want some prints from them. Hope you find it as entertaining as I did.

Click HERE to enjoy!

Success in Travel

A trip to Florida presented itself a few happy moments.

Witnessing nature at its best I saw dolphin swim close to 20 feet away from the sail boat I was on and a yellow boxed puffer fish that I could have caught with my hands it was so close and very adorable! Also seeing sea anemones and a herring. All brought me great happiness to see them while on a daily trip. This will always be the one thing I miss about Florida.

While exploring the intercostal I hoped to find a pretty sea shell that I could take back with me, and after a great search I found a spot loaded with conk shells! I searched for one that wasn't housing anyone and finally came to a success! It was huge! Bigger then my hands. And perfect for inspiration! On top of the shell was moss growing on top of it, but once you peered into the shell you saw the lushish shinny pink of the shell. Just wonderful for the idea of decay of a body.

Other then nature, I was able to see friends of the family and succeeded in finally getting my licenses! All in all it was a good trip for getting important things done. Oh my mother and I picked up my brother from Florida as well. Now we can finally say he is home from Costa Rica! Welcome Home Bro!

Newly Discovered

Hearing about the oldest shoe as I was drifting off I took note and looked up the information when I became more cognizant. Upon reading that the leather shoe began to harden when exposed to air I felt a connection to the story. As those who know my work know that decay is my main focus. This single show that was found was preserved for 5,500 years, and now that urban man has found it the shoe is rapidly starting to loose its "fresh" quality. The single shoe is being sent to either Switzerland or Germany where it will then be preserved and returned to Armenia to be displayed.

Upon reading the article I found out that it is NOT the oldest shoe, it is the oldest LEATHER shoe. The oldest shoe found was in a Missouri cave and the material is a woven plant fiber.

These were very interesting finds on a day I was feeling sick. I am glad that I over heard that, because earlier in the day I missed out on a weaving guild because I was sleeping. TISK TISK.

Anyway here are the sites to my findings.

Leather shoe

Summery of the different types of shoes

I am 22 going on 5

Today I got really excited to go to an art opening. I did the thing where it's like do I go right when it opens? Do I go in the middle, or towards the end? What's the best time for the best scene?

From work I went home and got ready and calmed my nerves by sitting at the dog park till I felt time was appropriate to head over. I have always worked this place up in my mind for gallery openings, because the artists are of major interest!

Here is the online version of what I saw in person.

http://cgrimaldisgallery.com/static/current.html

Upon my arrival I saw that my timing was good. I looked around at the work and was shocked by the quality. The photos that I saw online prior weren't doing them justice. The actual size of the work and the quantity was comfortably tasteful. Mid browse of the gallery I noticed that the other artists at the opening were all above 35 (and 35 was maybe two couples, and then the rest near 50) making me feel like a five year old viewing such an unfathomable thought like black holes and ant hills. This made my comfortable feeling quickly turn to an overwhelmingly unease feeling. Thinking how am I to goto art openings and network if I am a minnow in an ocean. Or more simply how am I to net work if I don't grow a back bone and make myself present (of course this didn't come to thought till I was homeward bound).

I finished perusing the works and even went back and did a double take to a few. I even flipped threw a few books that were published that had his work plastered within. All this just to stall my departure (ok, not just! I also did it to educate myself with nicely crafted work. Also to see if any other people would come into the gallery). Then I ran. Ran out of the emerging artist gallery and went straight home.

My experience with this opening was not what I had hoped. I didn't get what I wanted out of it, but got a surprise and ended up learning something that I wouldn't have guessed to learn. which is that I cannot begin to call myself an emerging artist if I don't grow a back bone. Going to the opens wont cut it, applying to galleries wont cut it. You have to present yourself, and know how to do it well! This is just another thing I am tacking onto my summer in order to learn more and develop myself to become that better person/artist.

But Ps. i thought of Chrissy Day and how she should show with him! Look into his work Chrissy