Evocation

According to Oxford English Dictionary, "evocation" means the act of bringing a feeling, memory, or image to the conscious mind. I have always wanted my artwork to be evocative. I provide an image for the viewer; but most of the time, I want the image to serve as something like a Rorschach ink-blot. That is, rather than me trying to convey "a message" to the viewer, I prefer that the image evoke feelings (i.e., some emotional reaction). And I'm generally not concerned about what those feelings/responses happen to be (although I am generally not interested in evoking a feeling of being "insulting" to others). I consider myself a "lucky" artist, in that, when I am in my studio and a composition stirs some reaction in me, I am generally quite confident that it will have the same effect on someone else viewing the piece. The feelings can arise from looking at a composition that is aesthetically-pleasing; but it can also come from an image that is somewhat disturbing. I think my favorite composition is one that is ambiguous, but still evocative -- one for which the viewer "provides the emotional narrative". What prompted me to write this post this morning, was this sketch I worked on last night in the studio. It's just a sketch at this point -- I'm not sure I will continue with it or not. But as it emerged, I found it at once ambiguous, and hauntingly evocative. So I thought I would share.

How long?

In addition to copyright and creativity questions, I often get asked "how long does it take you to create a piece"?, when I give a presentation or have an exhibit. Without meaning to be evasive, I respond by saying that it is really difficult to answer that question. I have rarely created a composition in a single setting (as in, almost never). In addition, as I have written about in the past, my creative process relies on emergence of ideas after much exploration and experimentation with various elements. That is, it is highly unusual for me to have an idea in my head, that I then try to express in a composition. I have hundreds (thousands?) of pages of interesting images kind of "floating around" my studio space that I "play around" with somewhat chaotically -- waiting for interesting compositions to emerge. Sometimes compositions take weeks, or months, to come together fully. So it was interesting this weekend, when this composition emerged so quickly. I had come close to finishing the "microscope slide" piece (I still have to figure out how to mount it; and I still need to apply the UV varnish on the individual pieces); so I started cleaning up my workspace a bit and was looking around at some elements that I had previously coated that were strewn about the studio. As I was experimenting with pieces and placements, a composition started to emerge. Of course, the emergence of these compositions don't just happen haphazardly. Once I "see" something interesting starting to emerge, my role as an artist is to pay attention to some basic design issues, like balance and contrast. Anyway, to make a short story not much longer, here is a piece that came together in about 24 hours (from Friday night until last night). I think the title will be "Seeking a Brain #7" -- the seventh in a series which includes former actor Ray Bolger (who played the scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz).

"microscope slide" project, almost complete

The snow in central NY (Utica) has been a bit overwhelming this past week. Utica University rarely cancels classes for "snow days", but did so last Friday, yesterday (Monday) and today. So I have been enjoying alternating between shoveling snow (great exercise) and spending time in my studio. Yesterday, I made some great progress on an interesting project I wrote about a few weeks ago on this blog. I'm not quite finished with it; but I thought I would share some intermediate photos of the work. I think it's an interesting project for a number of reasons. I created a long (24 inches) composition; which I then cut into 1" x 3" segments to mimic the dimensions of a microscope slide. These smaller segments will then be housed in a wooden microscope slide box. An interesting question arises, I suppose... should this be considered one collage, that is now cut-up; or is it 24 "mini collages" (or both perhaps)? When eventually placed in the wooden slide box, the collage images will be mostly obscured (out of sight), until they are removed from the box. In order to see the entirety of the initial long collage, the slides will need to be re-configured. Weird... but I like the "complexity" of the work. Here are some photos of the almost-finished work...

gotta paint the edges!

Finally finished

I finally finished these two pieces today. They were a bit long in the making, as I had many decisions to make and went through some "need to fix it" moments for both. If you have followed this blog at all recently, you are aware that the one with the flower started-off with a beautiful transfer of a fetal skull... which quickly got "ghosty" enough that I didn't feel comfortable leaving it as an element. So I covered it and worked on a conceptually different piece. I like the way it turned out; although it seems a little bit busy to me. The other piece is, of course, a nod to Warhol. 

"Love is Blind" (7" x 7"; 11" x 11" framed)

"Elvis, Abe, and Andy" (14" x 6.5"; 18" x 10.5" framed).

 

Tom Nettle shout out

 I went to the opening reception of the Winter Solstice exhibit at The Paul Nigra Center for the Arts (Gloversville, NY) last night. I have two collages in the exhibit; and my good friend Tom Nettle had two of his paintings in the exhibit as well. I am SO happy that Tom received "Best in Show: Second Place" honors for his "Self-Portrait 2020" painting! And I must say, the exhibit consists of a very strong collection of artworks. Bravo Tom! Well-deserved.

Serendipitous circle

It's been a bit since I posted. I was away for 4 days at the Southern Humanities Conference in Greenville, SC. The conference was WONDERFUL! Such a great group of humanities scholars. The theme this year was "Real, Artificial, and Superficial". I presented a paper about the nature of hallucinations and how using the term "hallucination" for a factual mistake that AI makes is a complete misnomer. I also heard two papers that alluded to the term "aura" (coined by Walter Benjamin), as it relates to authenticity in artwork. VERY interesting. Anyway since I have been back, I have been mostly experimenting and exploring in my studio, rather than getting any pieces completed. I think it is a natural cycle that I go through. I am starting to get to the point where I will complete several projects soon. I continue to work on the composition which will include covering up the skull transfer that "went bad". I will be using a "punched-out" circle element in this piece and wanted to share a fortuitous and beautiful serendipitous event that happened. I had made several punched-out circle elements from this page of The Art Journal (circa 1878) to cover-up the female sculpture taken from the same page (to match the gray patina). I didn't realize until last night, that the subtle variegation in the element matched perfectly (and beautifully) with the pelvis curve of the sculptural element. This serendipitous and unintentional event will absolutely enhance this overall composition... and I couldn't be happier.

Friday night fun

Well, well... once again, I'm starting some new projects before I finish already-in-progress projects. That is not particularly surprising, given my short attention span and my penchant for exploartion and experimentation. This past Friday, I ended-up coming across this small box (meant for microscope slides). I think I came-up with a cool idea for putting this object to use. I am contemplating creating a collage that would be 3" x 25". I will then cut it into 25 1-inch sections, to be placed into this box like microscope slides. I could do 25 individual (independent) 1" x 3" collages; but I thought it would be cool to be able to reconstruct a 3" x 25" collage by placing the 25 individual "slides" together. This is absolutely a work-in-progress. I'll see how it goes (and, of course, post with progress and/or final piece). I'm also adding an image here of a composition that "came together" quickly as another possible project. Man, do I love my time in my creative space!

Side painting, of course!

Plan B

Well... I've never experienced this before with one of my transfers. Usually, the transfer either works well -- all the paper comes off the back; and it is positioned correctly -- or it doesn't. When it works well, I then re-coat the transferred element with acrylic medium and it's good to go, and I can continue with the overall composition. As I wrote previously, the fetal skull transfer looked great... so I re-coated it. When I went into my studio last night, it seems that the transfer had "ghosted" on me. The black lines weren't so black anymore, and you could see a little ghostly residue of the backing paper. DAMN! I was so excited about that particular transfer. A couple folks said, "It looks okay". But I am pretty picky about what comes out of my studio; and just "okay" doesn't cut it (pun intended). So I have decided to cover it up -- changing a significant element in the composition I had been working on. I'm not showing an image of the ghosting here. What I will show is what I think is an interesting excision of elements from an integrated image. My plan right now (which, of course, can always change), is to try to use the sculptural element of the woman. The thing is, I wanted to isolate that element. I wish that I had thought to take a photo of the entire page before I started cutting it; but I think you still get the idea. SO... I am seriously disappointed about the fetal skull transfer. But I am trying to making lemonade from a lemon. Oftentimes, it works out for the best. And it gives me a chance to post photos of an interesting excision of elements.

Graph paper follow-up

VERY pleased with how this transfer turned out (clarity, alignment)! I've also included a couple of sketching ideas. This one is going to be a bit of a departure from my usual "voice".

 

sketching with graph paper

 Oh man... last night's session in the studio was exhilarating. I knew the various graph papers would be fun to work with. I decided to do what I love to do... experiment and explore (even though I have a bit of  "problematic" piece that I should tackle and finish). These photos only show a subset of the combinations I tried. The man and woman shown here, will be transferred onto the graph paper at some point (I think); as will the infant skull (so weird). And I LOVE the geometric abstract sketch.

All of these sketches are "works-in-progess" and may or may not come to fruition. I am just excited that the graph paper has turned to be as stimulating as I had hoped. Stay tuned for what becomes of these ideas!

The impact of subtle changes

Whilst experimenting/exploring this evening, I considered these two versions of a combination of elements. Hat under; hat over. Interesting difference...

Not as subtle as expected.

Beginning of a new year

Well, I didn't do an "end-of-the-year" reflection post, but I will briefly say that 2024 was a great year for me, artistically-speaking. Although I was very disappointed not to be accepted to the National Collage Society annual juried show, I had a wildly successful solo exhibit at The Other Side (Utica, NY) and our collab exhibit at the Kirkland Arts Center (Clinton, NY), as well as the Art Expo at 4 Elements Studio (as I had posted). Sold a bunch of work; so now am excited to work on getting my "inventory" replenished. For this post, I thought I would re-cap my art week. I just returned last night, from a trip to see the Egon Schiele exhibit at the Neue Gallery in New York City. Schiele is one of my all-time favorite artists! The exhibit did not disappoint. Wow... beautiful paintings, drawings and sketches! Photography was not allowed (but I would encourage anyone to look-up his work on the web). This is a photo of me in front of a beautiful Klimt painting at the gallery...

On my way back from NYC, I stopped by The Black Gryphon (owned and operated by my friend and fellow collage artist Anthony Morgan) to see pieces from our KAC collab exhibit, now on display at the restaurant.

And... I was thinking about making a separate post for this (I keep track of the annual count of my posts ;-), but I will include it in this pot pourri post...

I was SO excited last week, before I departed for NYC, to find these gems in a dumpster at school! Yes, packages (multiples!) of various graph papers! Only a collagist (and perhaps some nerdy engineers) would get so excited about graph paper ;-). And I have enough to share with Toeny too! I already have some ideas about how I will use these elements.