Monday, December 20, 2010

Cube Sculptures

Within a day or two after my first post on box sculptures, I was on the phone with my friends Chris and Laura, both visual designers and educators.

Chris used the word cube instead of box and immediately my mind went back to my sophomore year where she taught analytical drawing that started with the cube. But more powerful, the word freed me of function — a box being a container, but the cube being form. A cube can be manipulated, its dimensional geometry explored and reformed. It's sculptural. A cube could still evolve to be a container if I chose — where and how it opens to enter and hold (containers are a theme I've wanted to investigate in some of my work). I began by sketching cubes, geometric shapes and openings, then moved on to arranging 3"x3" chipboard squares to create cube-like forms.

Then I spoke with my other friend Laura and she suggested, "why don't you apply your drawings instead of the paper?" I nearly died it was so simple and clear. I chose my recent India tile sketches because they are expressive and have their own underlying structure, and found that the cube with a one-paneled opening worked best to compliment these particular drawings.

I thank Chris and Laura for their thoughtful engagement and insight into my process. It's been wonderfully freeing, and I really like the results! See more here. 




Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Box Sculptures

Handcrafted cards, boxes, folders, frames, bags – these are the things that I’ve had in my mind to do. They are all vessels, containers for holding thoughts, keepsakes, images, and gifts. I had just finished a collection of collage cards and was ready to take on boxes.

I didn’t want to limit my approach with an eye towards just craft, something I think of as more functional and beautiful, but to widen my approach to seeing them as objects of art, something to investigate for its own sake regardless of aesthetics and practicalities. My friend Kathryn, who I meet once a month for an art exchange, called them box sculptures when I started to describe my idea. I think that word, “box sculpture” allowed me the freedom to converge my notions of craft and art, or in fact let go.

This is the first one and like most first sketches it isn’t at all close to what I had in mind. I started with a template of a standard small box and covered it with squares and strips of found and decorative papers. I’m not at ease working in 3D. The glue I used is not strong enough, the box is fragile and it doesn't close. I thought of lining the whole inside with the same paper but it was too intense, so I changed mid-course and now the result looks odd. It’s not very “sculptural.” I doubt there’s any sort of convergence of art and craft in this, but I did try to let go of preconceptions. 

It is kind of eclectic-looking. I didn’t hold back on how I arranged the paper collage. I enjoyed the process. It took me forever to make (starting with cutting the squares and strips of paper). But in the end I like it. It’s the beginning of a new direction. Now I can start on another one and am excited to see what happens.















Wednesday, August 25, 2010

India Tile Sketches

I spent a couple Saturdays ago with my friends Kathryn and Roberto and Roberto's daughter Kate. We took a road trip to my little cabin not too far from Shelburne Falls to retrieve a vintage refrigerator there, which (we think) is from the 1940s or earlier. Kathryn is an artist and needs a dozen or so for her art installation!

So what does all this have to do with my India tile sketches? Both Kathryn and Roberto are artists — visual and musical. In the car ride back we talked art, something I don't often get a chance to do on the level that we did. It was sheer delight and wonderfully inspiring. The next day I spend four hours in my studio working again on the line drawing sketches from the well-trodden tile floor of the Amber Fort in Jaipur, India.

I admit I struggled with these. The sketches feel somewhat trying, like I was trying too hard and didn't quite get to that place of being free with the line expression and connecting it with the composition. I know this is all a part of the process, though.

Thanks for taking the time to see my latest series of sketches. If you'd like to see more, go here.

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Eucalyptus Sketches

These sketches are from a dried eucalyptus branch that was part of our wedding flower arrangements. They looked a lot better a couple of months ago, but somehow the afterlife of this branch remained in this wonderful windswept form.

I had to draw it. It wasn't easy. I drew it to actual size by first laying it down on the page and plotting some points. The leaves all wove into each other so it was hard to capture any depth in my sketches. I didn't mind the flowing flat lines merely suggesting leaves in the early sketches, but as I continued in my sketches what became more suggestive was the wind to me, and less so the leaves.






Sunday, July 18, 2010

Sketching in Fairmount Park

Drawing and painting in the landscape. We did that ten years ago in Vézelay, France during a week-long drawing camp organized by Chris Zelinsky, then a professor of drawing in the Graphic Design Department The University of the Arts in Philadelphia. There were over twenty of us alum. This past weekend we had a mini reunion organized by Andrew Iskowitz. A handful of us showed up, myself included, and this time in more humble settings — Fairmount Park in Philadelphia.

I had a particular vision in my mind in anticipation of this weekend so when I saw the park landscape before me with its majestic trees and cultivated bushes and an expansive view, I knew I had found it. Sitting on the grass under a big tree, shading me from the burning heat of the summer, I began to take in the view before me. And I began to sketch.

The first sketches were about taking in the essence of the landscape — light/shadow, differentiation among the trees, the composition. Later, quick reference sketches freed me to finding a way of capturing and translating the landscape. These look most like scribbles, but they are dynamic and probably my favorite. So much of my work is about expressing the line, discovering a language of the line. In these the landscape, depth, and detail give way and an impression remains.

Go here if you'd like to see more sketches.







Sunday, July 4, 2010

Amber Fort Sketches

In January I went to India for the second time, this time with my dear friend Chris. It was such a different trip being with her — and artist with architect's eye for space and light and detail, she turned me on to seeing the Amber Fort in Jaipur as if for the first time. What I saw was the light hitting the mirror-inlaid walls, the soft cool random arrangement of the marble-tiled floors textured with years and worn of walking feet. I was mesmerized, almost intoxicated by what I was seeing and at every turn and corner there was more. I couldn't stop photographing. I kept imagining my studio, at my desk investigating these images.

Back home in my studio, this is what became of it, or at least the start of it. It's the line structure that draws me in — the lines, and what I could do in expressing the lines. It's
a new direction of mark making for me, and I'm excited to see where it will go. See more images of this series here.