In The New Year

The crazy crush that I find myself in each December has passed. I've been considering what direction my work should take. I am very happy with my current paintings but have to realize that they have not gained an audience. I believe these painting will make more sense when shown together so I do plan on continuing the series and searching for a place to show them. From the beginning, I saw this series as a step towards abstraction and now I feel like I am ready to work non-objectively for the first time since completing a project during my first semester at the Corcoran.

I have also been planning a multimedia project for a couple of months. At this point, I am expecting the project to take around a year to come together, perhaps continuing indefinitely.

I spent much of the early part of 2011 working on Material World and only exhibited my work at Artomatic@Frederick. It still may be some time before I show again but I am looking forward to resetting the studio and getting down to work.

NYC Trip

I went up to NYC two weeks ago for a wine tasting event (day job) and haven't had the time to write up my thoughts. Before I get to the art, I thought I'd do a quick post on the wine and food aspect of the trip.

First the wine- Best Wine Saxum Syrah (I can see why Wine Spectator has this as their #1 wine last year.) Very close were two Aussie Shiraz- Two Hands Ares and Mollydooker Velvet Glove. The Cheval Blanc was my favorite Bordeaux followed closely by Lafite and Haut-Brion. The Bruno Giacosa Barolo was awesome. I made a point of tasting a number of Pinot Noirs since it is generally not my favorite varietal but the Kosta Brown was fantastic (could this be the wine of the year this year?) as well as the AP Vin, Bergstom and Beaux Freres. For California cab- my pick goes to Staglin. I was very intrigued with the blend that Brian Loring was pouring.

For food, I had a couple of burgers from places that had been suggested. HB Burgers was fine. Its the bar and grill version of Heartland Brewing. Beers were ok, burgers were fine, Nothing special. Tried the Shake Shack burger on Friday. Again, a weaker version of Five Guys with good crinkle cut fries. BTW- when you are going to a tasting expecting to taste 60-80 wines, you need protein before hand. Of course, I spit at the tastings, there is no other way to taste that many. When I organized my notes on Friday morning, I realized that I had tasted 85 wines Thursday night. Anyway, For lunch on Saturday, we met a friend in Chelsea were we had lunch at the Half King- better burger than either of the recommended burger places.

On Friday, we had lunch at a Bobby Flay restaurant, Cafe Americain which was recommended to us by some folks at Food & Wine Magazine. They know what they are talking about- one of the best steaks I've ever had. The spice rub worked perfectly with the house-made steak sauce. Since I believe I make a great steak, I don't usually order them out but since Flay is a grill kind of guy, I figured I'd give it a go- and there was the protein thing too.

On Saturday, we ended up on Mulberry Street at dinner time. We found a place that didn't seem like a tourist trap, Da Nico's. There was no slick guy trying to hustle us to a table. They appeared to have plenty of regulars that the owners were greeting. The food was very good if not great but we had a lovely time. A nice, completely unknown to me, Nero was recommended by the waiter.

Surprise food experience- truly kick ass meatballs in the MoMA cafe!

My Favorites from Artomatic@Frederick

Here are a few of my favorites from Artomatic@Frederick. I wish I had taken pictures since I had some difficulty finding sites or images by a number of these artists. So, make sure you go and when your there, make a point of seeing these spaces.

Brain Slagle- I helped Brain and his father put together the base portion of Corn Crib. It really turned out beautifully.
http://www.artiqueunderground.com/artist/28

Jeff and Kristin Bohlander- First I want to thank them for the additional reflected light. Jeff's collages and Kristin's mixed media sculptures are very different. Having spouse that is an artist, I think it is so interesting when couples make work very differently. I think it just has to be that way.

Jennifer Bernhard Hatfield- Quirky, wonderfully crafted pieces
http://www.jenniferbernhardhatfield.com/

Roberta Staat- I'm sucker for good drawing. Though there are a lot of cow artwork out there, I really like these for the technique.
http://staatworks.com/node/149

Rhonda J Smith- Her prints with added collage and embroidered elements convey a mystical quality that touches on universal themes

Kristin Partridge- Hard to not like something this lovely
http://kristinpartridge.com/photography/alternative-process-photographs.htm

Deborah Winram- Her keepsake piece is intriguing. It is made of small jars containing, for the most part, delicate reminders of the past.

Michael Winger- Excellent sculptures with wood, twine and other natural elements. I was particularly taken by the wall piece.

Whaddya Know?

I read an interesting piece at Wine Spectator Online today by writer Matt Kramer. He is a fascinating wine writer, though I don't always agree with him (well, not very often at all actually) but I find his positions to be thought provoking, challenging to my own ideas.

The article begins by quoting NYT writer, Eric Asimov on the confidence beer drinkers have about enjoying the beverage vs the anxiety wine consumers have about wine. Where it gets interesting is when Kramer brings in Adam Gopnik's critique of "elitist" wine writers. Kramer does a good job of taking down Asimov and Gopnik's arguments but the analogy of wine writing to contemporary art criticism got me thinking.

OK, so having a dual life as a wine educator/retailer and a contemporary artist that actually reads Artforum. I think that just might make me qualified to chime in on this one.

I believe it is true that you can gain more pleasure through knowledge. Here I'm talking about wine, art, music, poetry, etc. I get more out of wine now than I did 15 years ago. I also get more out of music since I've learned more about how music is constructed. But one thing I find is true, I don't usually decide something that I did not like initially all of the sudden becomes better because I came to understand it more.

Around the age of 13 or so, I first read T.S. Eliot. I'm not sure that I understood much of it but I was intrigued by it. Over the years, I kept coming back to his work and by my senior year of college, I had dove deep into his world, creating a suite of paintings based on his life and work. Clearly, my appreciation grew with knowledge but from the start, I knew his work was great.

So take wine, many of my colleagues prefer wines that some would define as sophisticated. These wines may have mineral or earthy characteristics. As a guy selling wine, this is how I describe them to customers. To friends, I would say they tasted like rocks and dirt. No amount of elevated understanding will cause me to like these flavors. I know people that do naturally prefer wines like these, but for the most part, wine geeks "grow" to like these wines.

I'm pretty sure I know what Paul McCarthy is doing but I find his work to be ugly and well, kind of stupid. It has been a long time since art has shocked me, so let's go with stupid. Likewise for Jeff Koons. Never once did I think these guys were making great art. Money- yes. Art-no. Somewhere some tastemakers decided this was good art and we are expected to fall in line. In art, as with wine, I believe in trusting yourself.

At Once I Knew I Was Not Magnificent

This painting was begun at the same time as Standing on the Shoulders of Giants. Here, I returned to an image I have worked with in the past. Like a book or shoe, the design of a chair is has basically remained the same for centuries. This is actually my dining room chair. It is very solid (and heavy). Like the shoe, I set a single image against a extremely worked background. The chair is a strong image so it does not necessarily recede into the background here, rather it fits nicely into its surroundings.

The title comes from the song Holocene by Bon Iver. I believe I heard Justin Vernon say in an interview that the song, especially that line, was about a very bad night in a bar.

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

This painting grew out of my Guston readings. Like Guston, I wanted to paint an object that is part of my everyday world. I saw this as a celebration of a thing that is well crafted and built to last. The design for a basic shoe has not changed for a long, long time. I was also striving for immediacy in getting the image down, using a projected image to get the placement just right. A funny thing happened as I worked on the piece. It became less about the shoe, or I should say less a celebration of this functional object. As in life, the shoe is begins to get lost in its surroundings. The large color fields, consisting of dozens of layers of paint, quickly draw a viewer's interest away from the shoe. I believe this painting will be a pivotal one. The push-pull between the mundane and sublime has opened up avenues of explorations.

For Guston (Books)

Last Spring, I spent a few weeks with my right arm in a sling then about 6 weeks of physical therapy. During this period, I spent a lot of time reading, especially the writings and statements of Philip Guston and his friend Morton Feldman. It was fascinating to note that Guston's views never changed much, even when he made the "shocking" break from abstraction to figuration. I was drawn to his use of a limited amount of everyday objects and their placement on the canvas. Watching film of Guston at work also inspired me to be more direct in my painting, getting it down quickly. Guston was described as the best read high school drop out ever. I decided to paint a stack of books since this was an image Guston painted over and over again, plus it is a nice play on my last name. Well, the direct thing didn't work out though this was record time for me at around one month to produce. I had already begun work on a couple of other paintings but I realized that I was being drawn to the background as much as to the pile of books. This was more obvious in the next couple of paintings where there is only a single object depicted. I am intrigued by having this celebration of everyday battle and perhaps lose to the empty background. This is more pronounced in the work that follows.