Sometimes it is crazy how fast time flies by. The past couple of weeks I have spent a lot of time hanging out with friends, running errands, providing a shoulder to cry on, being that guy that provides amusement. It was good, but by about Monday of this last week I felt spent. It is hard to be completely social and still attempt to work on a bunch of art work. The two mind sets are not the same for me. I definitely need my social time, but I have been neglecting my art time way too much since about August. Monday was the night that Sandy hit the Maine coast and I spent it re-organizing my half of my apartment so that it is nothing but one big studio space. I set the futon up as a couch which I’ve been sleeping on and set up the desk in my room as a study, much like in a Sherlock Holmes movie. I just need a pipe and a deer stalking hat. I already have the roommate. He’s a manager of an art store, but we’ll call him Dr. Koniezcko for now. Anyway, my studio looked dope by the end of Monday night. I started to read. I have a book of Keith Haring’s journals that I have just recently started. It is amazing and provides all of that support that I needed to complete my thesis six months ago. That is irrelevant, however. The book has been making me think again, making me consider my own artistic dreams, and reconsider some ideas that I had a while back.
A little over a week ago, I was also given a number of panels from a good friend whose studio and gallery needed to move. It couldn’t have worked out more perfectly. With the new found energy I cancelled my trip to Lewis County in New York and didn’t tell anyone here in Maine. I spent the next three days holed up in my studio. It was lovely. My head started to think again. I started to play a little more with the vertical series, to the point where I no longer think that I can get away with calling it the vertical series now.
I placed a number of the panels in a grid as I finished them. The first grid was just a four pack, but started to make me think about the various layers of missed connections and interrupted lines of power.
I was pleased with this, but then started to think about how many of these I could actually place next to each other without effecting the continuity of the piece as a whole or the pieces serving as the constituents. I came up with this block of nine by the end of this evening.
I was very pleased with this collection of pieces. I found myself really thinking about combining old school cross hatched illustrations, Mondrian, and comic book illustration. The layout of color was very much influenced by Mondrian, while the colors that I picked were more referential to Lichtenstein and the Sunday Comics colors.
Here are a few of the panels in greater detail.
This has been a great project so far. I’m excited to continue working on it tomorrow. Everything seems to be coming together nicely again. Until then.
Peace
-Mike