Fault

Here are some detail shots of another drawing series that I just finished entitled "Fault". 

 

 Each full drawing is 22"x30", pencil on paper.

Feeling kind of lost lately as I'm in this transitional stage in life.  I don't know.

Bloom Series

I've been trying to gather some ideas for art with meaning lately, but I'm still having fun experimenting and creating things that are just plain ole pretty.

 

These are pencil drawings collaged with illustrations from a book about wildflowers.

11 x 15

Tis the season for a handmade Christmas!

 

Christmas presents for my best friends.  Can you guess who is who?

7x10, collage and drawing.

Thieves

This is a collage that I made for my sister back in August.  We hit the jackpot in Sarasota snagging a 6-point deer skull and a pair of antlers from an architectural salvage store for ten dollars a pop.  She spent a week cleaning them and set them in the backyard to dry, and then they were stolen!  So, I thought she deserved a little pick-me-up.

 Thieves, August 2012.

Gold pen and collage, 8x10.

Connect

I've been out of the game for so long.  Post-graduation freedom and working a ton.  Here's something I had been working on.  I had been feeling a little down not creating anything.  Sometimes you just need a $7 piece of paper to get inspired.

30 x 22, Ebony Pencil on Watercolor paper.

Lucky Boys

These are from over the summer, but I never shared.  Did these for two of my favorite boys in world, Cody and Ian.  Don't think I will be drawing many boy hairstyles in the future, though.

Graphite on Canson, 2012.

Folklore of the Teeth

Here is a project that I was working on for my final assignment for advanced ceramics.  Lately I have been finding myself exploring folklore and old stories that I have been finding in old books from my favorite place in the world, Good Cents.  

There was a simple concept behind this piece, and that was to illustrate the cultural beliefs that people hold about teeth, including the power behind them, the practices of curing toothaches, and how one's future can be determined through teeth.  I illustrated text that I pulled from a very interesting book (that has been probably sitting for years in remote storage in the library) entitled Folklore of the Teeth by Leo Kanner, written in 1928.  I was also inspired by a new idea that is trending- teeth tattoos.

L to R: Traveler, Urine/Mother's Milk/Christ's Blood, Tethered, Heimdal, Fish Vesu, 
Cradle Ornamentation, Evil Eye, and Milk Tooth Exchange

Detail of Traveler.

 Each tooth varies in size, from around 2.5" in diameter to 6" in diameter.  They are drawn on with pen and colored pencils, and coated in a thin layer of white wax. 

I am thinking of how to display these in the future... maybe tight little boxes that they can fit snugly in.  I am also researching different types of malleable wax and rubber.

I will probably make some more of these as I can't keep my nose out of this book! What the heck are some of these people thinking?!

Bubba

 

Long long long awaited tattoo drawing for another friend.  With shading and without. About 5x7.

Chief

 

Chief, 2012. Pen and watercolor. 9x13.

Drawing for a friend... trying to get better at keeping promises of creating things for the ones I love.

Wild

Wild, a public art installation near a pathway along Silver Lake in Tallahassee, Florida.  

Created for Linda Hall's Creative Inquiry class.

This drawing is an oldie but a goodie, first seen here.

For Meme

A Christmas gift to my Meme... This was her favorite childhood home.  

Watercolor and pen, 8"x10".

Braids

Here is a study that I am in the process of working on.  

Lately I have been extremely fond of braids and the different techniques of braiding.  Hair is something that is appearing in my work often.  There is just something odd about the human race's relationship to hair--whether they see it as an object to lust after or something that traps them.  Also, I have been interested in the reactions of people when they encounter hair that is not attached to a human or animal: curiosity, indifference, disgust. 

I really like drawing these.  The repetitiveness of the locks folding over one another has been really soothing for me during these busy last couple of months.  So, I decided that I am making a hundred of them.

I am very drawn to multiples and the tedious nature of replicating one idea over and over.  I don't have a large body of work or many large pieces at all, so I think that this will be a project that I will continue to do to relieve stress until I become exhausted at the thought of hair braiding, and hopefully by that time this study will have grown to an enormous size.

Each drawing is done on watercolor paper with ebony paper and measures about 6" by 10.75". 

Photographic Book Exhibition

End of the year projects and Art Basel summary coming soon...

Fungi

Here is the a little snippet of my final project for John's photo book class, also known as the most frustrating project I have encountered all semester.  

All Hail the Kiln Gods

In ceramics, people have these gods that we pray to when our pieces are in the kiln to protect our work from damage.

So I decided that it was only appropriate, after having fired two out of three of my projects, as well as some porcelain pieces, that I should pay homage to my kiln goddess.  Here she is!

Watercolor and Micron pen, 7.5"x11"

Update

I haven't blogged in a while, so I just wanted to condense everything that I have been working into one entry.

These are white earthenware honeycombs that I have been working on in ceramics.  The largest is a little over 16"x12", and there are two smaller ones.  I am very attracted to homes, so I wanted to explore the habitat of an insect.  These are coming out of the kiln today! Hopefully they will be installed in the Art Alley.

This is a side project that I have been working on.  Lately I have been very obsessed with the idea of hair and its links to identity, strength, and weakness, as well that the oddity it becomes when it is detached from a person.  This should be finished this week.  It is a banyan tree that will be draped in long braids.  The drawing is around 5.5'x3'.

These are two projects that I have been doing in printmaking class.  The one at left is a litho print that was created in Photoshop.  It incorporates an old family slide, one of my drawings, collage, and a photograph I took.  The picture at right is my screen print project.  It involves the old and outdated practice of phrenology.  I was experimenting with which traits I actually possess with the traits that I should possess according to the bumps and indentations in my skull.

Finally, these are porcelain molars that are also coming out of the kiln today.  Like hair, these are objects that become strange when apart from a jaw.  I have also created small porcelain nests that I hope to fire in the soda kiln that these babies will sit in.  As for the meaning? I think it has to do with identity again.  I'll get back to you on that when I get some final pictures up.

Dreamland

This is my final project for Chuck's Creative Inquiry class.  It is a work in progress.

Illustrating my dreams has been something I have wanted to do for a long time now.  I have had an idea in my head ever since I saw these tall panels with bird drawings covered in wax in the MoFA my freshman year.  I have recorded my dreams ever since the sixth grade, and they have been piling up in a folder that I have taken to school with me.  The unconscious mind is something that I find so fascinating and I am wanting to incorporate it into my work and more and more.  Because my work deals with the idea of self so much, I think that dreams are something that should be constantly considered in my creating.  

I had been wanting to create a quilt-like collage of text and illustration.  This is a project that I wanted to include in both of my BFA applications—which obviously did not happen—so I was super excited to finally have the motivation to take on this huge project. 

 

 Ideally, I would like this to hang from the ceiling and be at least three feet longer.  Also, I would love for the other side to be quilted together so that the viewer is able to walk around the piece.  I'd like it to have much more weight to it, which I think will be accomplished with the reverse side and perhaps some coats of wax. 

Ink and watercolor on vellum and printmaking paper & embroidery

30"x68" (thus far)

Kate MacDowell is my idol.

So I figured that I would kill some time before leaving to get some lunch and check if I got into BFA (eek!) and put down in words a post that I have been formulating for some time in my head.

For Holly's class, we did a contemporary ceramics project that had to be based off of a modern ceramist's work.  I was sniffing around Artaxis when I came across Kate MacDowell, a ceramist who primarily works in porcelain hand-built sculptures.  When I looked on her website, I found that the symbols she works with (skulls, birds, nests, fetuses, organs, and insects) were ones that I have dealt with in my own work.  BUT, there was one piece that stuck out more than anything:

Entangled, 12.5"x10"x4.5", hand-built porcelain and cone 6 glazes, June 2010

If you have been following my blog along, you will see that this bears a strong, and I mean STRONG, resemblance to one of my pieces:

Anatomical Heart Octopus, Micron pen and ebony pencil on watercolor paper, February 2010

And I knew right then, I had found my art soul mate.  Everyone talks about an artist that has strongly influenced their work.  I had something similar, though I had never really felt a connection to any artist.  I literally stared at Entangled for fifteen minutes on my couch.  The fact that two people can come up with ideas like this independently baffles me.  Never in my life had I seen anything like this before I drew it for Chuck's class.  It kind of reminds me of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace and their ideas of natural selection and such.

Anyway, I obviously sent Kate some fan mail and she sent me back a lovely note answering a few questions I had about how she started to get into ceramics.  She has only been at it for four years!  Kind of gives me hope, haha.

Here is a drawing of a dragonfly that I made for Dakota.  It's a line drawing with Micron pen and the background is splattered watercolor. 8"x10".