Category: Uncategorized

I have homework done this evening and I am sitting in front of my computer trying as hard as all get out to think of questions that drive my studio practice, which will then be written at the top of a worksheet that is to be used to build my classmates and my theses.  I have written two questions and they seem very pretentious, so I thought that it might help to come over to this sphere of the art world and post a couple different projects that I have been working on.  I can’t help but think that this is after all my real artistic voice.

A couple weeks ago I took down two installations, threw the loose wood into my studio and jumped in my truck to go work for a weekend.  Meaning that last week when I got home there was an incredible mess lying out on the floor for me.  Most folks would decide to clean, but I decided to start building a seven foot tall robot out of wood. 

It is a very exciting process to sculpt with found wood materials.  I feel like I am painting and assembling at the same time, and never do I feel less of a gap between the two processes.  I do not concern myself with craftsmanship and try to downplay stability within the pieces.  I think, in the end, that this is where the translation between drawings and physical space really occurs for me.

Check out my robot.

The sketch is the type of cartoon robots that this guy is based on.  Do you think that it is possible to create a found sculpture that reads like a cute cartoon?  How does one blur the lines between cartoon and jagged surfaces?  I think I found my second question rooted in those two lines.

 

I drive a lot between New Hampshire and Maine and while on my drives often think of different art projects.  During the last week I was obsessed with the idea of televisions as planters, much like the old paintings I had done with the plants taking over a more technological setting.  I think that perhaps in the end this will be very similar to what happens in an apocalyptic world. 

The creatures that inhabited this planet from the get go will take over again.  At least I hope so.  With this in mind I created today’s piece:

 This piece is definitely a delineation from my more illustrative work but I think that incorporating this with more illustrative work will be very successful.  I am looking forward to the idea of matching this up with more painterly elements.

It does make me wonder what in the end counts as a painting, however.  This is certainly much more painting than it is reality.  Is any environment that is constructed more painting than reality.  Questions to be answered in the future but currently I have not the faculty to answer that.

Peace
Mike

Today I submitted my entries into the New Orleans Billboard Project.  A good deal of intricate cross hatching resulted in some work that I am very pleased with.  I think that this is a pretty fair example of how the two trains of thought that have been fueling my work intersect.

Lately I have been obsessed with interchangeable items as well as bringing the art of cartooning back into my work.  I know that here on this blog I have not shared a lot of work that was without its cartoons, but for the sake of school I have been sticking primarily to pipe drawings and found wood sculpture.  These two types of work are amazing and I love them, but neither is a path that I am willing to go down without cartoon and painting.  Cartoons and painting serve as my nubby, as my chef would put it.

So here are my last two images for the Billboard Project.  I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

 

This one I am very pleased with as well, though for different reasons.  This piece I think suggests a bit of a narrative for folks to pick out and I like that a lot.  It also is a bit simpler than the first two drawn pieces.   I am wondering if that makes it more or less powerful as an image?  Any ideas to this effect would be welcome.

As it stands to me though, another successful project.
Til next time.
Peace
-Mike

It’s been a super long couple weeks, but the drama on the home front is coming to an end and some of the big projects that I have been working on are near complete or already complete.  This week I finished up the October poster for Bard Coffee’s Thursday Night Throwdown and lined up another project for Portland’s Viva Lebowski, which is going to be an absolute blast.  I have three more days to pull together my imagery for the Billboard Project in New Orleans, and the semester is just starting to ramp up into something good.

For today I will just be sharing the October poster and the newest robot block that I have completed, though this particular robot block is a lot more than it seems.  It is much larger than the other blocks and carries more physical and mental weight to it.  So without further adieu.

I’m pretty pleased with this month’s poster.  It took a little doing to get it to save properly this month, because I’ve been so stressed out that I missed a step.  Whoops. 

Now, here’s the robot.

That’s it for now, but I will be back soon.  October is looking pretty big and some emotional crap has been going down too, so what better way to celebrate than with some artmaking.

Peace
Mike

I am left wondering if today was awesome or just plain awful.  I think that I am going to roll with awesome, because frankly today I did awesome stuff in the morning and awesome stuff at night and the mid-afternoon was awful.  To heck with it.  Crap sandwich, but for real, I made these today, and you can purchase them for five bucks from my friend Melissa, and that is awesome, because you can support me and my friend Melissa who is the awesomest.

I am stoked.  This has been something that I have wanted to put together for months.  So, awesome.  They are available currently at The Studio in Laconia, NH.  Get them while you.

In other news, I am falling seriously behind.  It’s called work and I have way too much of it to do right now.  I was feeling bummed about this a little while ago, but you know what?  I need that to keep me going.  I realized I was feeling crappy about other stuff and taking it out on my artwork and you know what that equals, crap sandwich.  Solved.  Moving on and making some stuff that I am in love with.  I will share with all of y’all soon.

Get Up.
Peace
Mike

Large scale installations constructed out of wooden elements lead to lots of wood scrap, and when your main painting ground is random wood scraps, that is a very good thing.  While I was cleaning studio recently, I found a project that I had started several years ago that is actually quite similar to the totems that I had started this spring.  Pieces of segmented 2×4 were shaped into blocks, painted in pastel and adorned with robot heads.  I would then stack them at random, allowing people to play with my work as they wished.

It is shocking to find that what you took a year to muddle through in an academic setting is actually something that you had already figured out and forgotten about.  Does this mean that I have actually thought of no new ideas while in school?  This is quite possible.  In fact it is beginning to seem quite probable.  As I know that I enjoy working, and have considerably in the last year and a half, I wonder what it is that I need to do to step out of this box that I have created for myself.

That all said, I enjoy this little box.   I don’t think I am completely ready to leave yet.  These robot blocks are pretty great too. 

 

I also thought that I would share my Day of the Dead piece for Lunar Boy tonight.  These are actually separate drawings, but it seemed easier to post as one photo.  Yet again the hatching and painted negative space.

Hope you dig.

That’s it for now.
Peace for real this time.
Mike

This semester of school I have made a major decision, and it boils down to this.  I will not be making work solely for my betterment as a student.  I have worked too hard and too long at creating relationships with galleries and artists to stop for the sake of my education.  With this in mind the first project that I am working on for my present study is the Billboard Project, which I will be participating in.  I have two images ready to be used on a billboard in downtown New Orleans.  This is great not only because of the immensity of the project but also because I have never shown in the state of Louisiana before.  This exhibition will knock of the tenth state in my goal to show in every state in the union.

I have been sticking with the crosshatching and negative space painting method for a series of pipe drawings as my first go around.  I have found that as I paint, I often lose some of the energy that my drawings possess.  I am sure that the same energy can be achieved with paint, but I think with a little more focus on the drawing I may get myself to a better place than I have been recently.  Then, hopefully, I will be able to return to the painting with a fresh mind and the capability of making it more loose and expressive.  With any luck these qualities will come out as free as the drawing and not appear contrived.

But enough of that.  I have drawings to show you, or are they?  I don’t know what to term these pieces.  They do have paint on them.  How much paint is required for it to be a painting?  I suppose I am merely defining the characteristics of my drawing so it would fall into drawing.  Thoughts?

 I am not sure why, but sometimes the cheapest materials are the most fun to work on.  Chip board takes an ink hatching really nicely, and lets be honest, there is little that acrylic paint won’t adhere to.  I am very fond of this piece.  I enjoy how the color of paint is not so different from that of the board surface.  It is subtle but not without contrast.

I am not sure that I am as big a fan of this particular color combination.  Perhaps I should have gone with more of an off compliment green.  There is a lot of pop in this but that blue seems so solid even here in digital form.  I am also not so certain that I appreciate the large swatches of pipe drawing as the more segmented piece.

I have more to share in the near future.  This blog was far easier to keep up with when I was not in school.  Frankly the scanning alone is often forgotten at this point, but like I say, I want to be doing more projects for me.  It is good for my sanity, and as an anti-depressant. 

I hope all of you are doing rad.
Peace
Mike

It has been a great week working in The Studio.  Melissa McCarthy is an amazing hostess, our awesome DJ Kyle dropped off some great tunage for the opening, and I have been working for three days straight to try to put together an interesting visual mash-up for the citizens of Central NH.  The Citizen of Laconia printed a photograph today of me installing and all around this has been a pretty tremendous experience.

 Here is what the installation looks like right now.  I am really only waiting for the paint to dry on the small table top.  Imagine with me if you will that the receiver is on top of the orange and pink blotch in the center of the the black table top.

 Here is a little close up of some intimate hatching in the middle.  There will be several more of the bears tomorrow for people to remove from the pegs and use if they so please.  It’s like a weird masquerade ball with Kyle’s music jamming.

Just a little further out so you can see where the speakers lay in this equation.  I spent a ton of time with the pipe connection in that lower right corner.  Weird.  The panel next to it took a quarter of the time but I like it a ton better.

That’s it for now.  I may post some images from the opening tomorrow depending on the turn out.  Also there may be some images from Saturday’s opening at Artstream Studios in Rochester, NH.  My glass jars are on exhibit there.  Stop by if you have time.  Five to eight-ish at both establishments.

Peace
Mike

It has been a super busy week.  I have two openings this week, an illustration that I need to work on, and an open studio event at the Studio, 84 Union Ave, Laconia, NH.  I am very pleased with the progress which the installation has shown thus far.  As I sit back and look at the installation, I also realize that I am making work now that I was completely incapable of visualizing years ago.  Perhaps this graduate school thing is doing what it is supposed to do, and perhaps I am getting older, more comfortable and more relaxed in my work.  Perhaps it is really a combination of the three.  No matter how I look at it though, I can see progress.  There is still a long way to go.  As an artist, is it possible to think that there isn’t someplace to go?  If you’ve made it, then what is there to work for?

I pontificate, so here’s some images.

It’s crazy, but I realized that I am a.) not nearly as afraid of heights as I used to be and b.) it is far easier to find a groove on a ladder when you put something in your hands that you feel completely comfortable with.

 I am very pleased with the movement in this corner.  The gaps seem just as important as the positive space.  I like the idea of negative space serving a role as a conscious element.

 I found a real use for the panels from my installation at the end of summer intensive and I think I understand both the characters and my artistic identity issues better for having let myself dwell on the subject a bit.

 The messy work area.  Found the table top at the back in the trash this morning on the way into the Studio.  How appropriate?

On the ladder again. 

I’m listening to some old Rancid, settling into working on this illustration, while I wait for my girlfriend with her cat snuggled up next to me on the bed.  Tomorrow more time at the Studio.  If you’re in the area, stop by.  But for now, chilling.

Peace
Mike