Last summer, Maurice and I had a show in Moberly, MO. On the way back from installation I had to let my hair down. Click the image for a surround video of the event.

This group seems really dedicated and interested… here’s hoping for some epic work this semester!

So it is that I have been creating images that attempt to play with the edge between 2D compositional formatting and the illusion of 3D space. My guide is always perception – that is, my own sense that a form keys into illusion as well as into flat shape. Some of the works are more clearly abstract (seemingly without referent) while others are more obviously depictive. Yet both are aiming at the same goal. Below I present works in this vein I’ve been making over the last year or so – these are just a few of what is a growing body of work.

Ideal Form #2, Mezzotint and gouache, 7 inches in diameter.

Two Bells, Acrylic on panel, 24 inches in diameter.

The Seedbed (#1, Subtractive), Graphite on paper on panel, 23.5 inches in diameter.

Untitled Template Drawing, Graphite and gouache on paper, 20 inches in diameter.

Untitled Template Drawing (A 5 for Daniggelis), Graphite, ink, and gouache on paper, 20 inches in diameter.

Seven Mandalas for the Murky History of Beginnings and Endings, #3, Marker, graphite, ink, collage and white-out on paper, 6.25 inches in diameter. Collection of Ian and Natalie Shelly, New Albany, IN.

Seven Mandalas for the Murky History of Beginnings and Endings, #5, Marker, graphite, ink, collage and white-out on paper, 6.25 inches in diameter. Collection of Tim and Denya Wolff, Camden, NY.

Pivot, Paper collage, gouache, and acrylic on paper, 9 inches in diameter.

For Tatlin, Paper collage, gouache, and acrylic on paper, 9 inches in diameter.

The Teachers, Oil on Panel, 24 inches in diameter.

The Resonators (In Progress), Oil on Panel, 12 inches in diameter.

Next post: I’ll break down the 2D and 3D binaries I’m thinking of in some of these works. Also, I wrote some initial thoughts about this process of settling in on a new focus in this post: “What I’ve Been Musing on Recently.”

Awesome! And there are 5 more of that print left if you’re interested…

Working hard on the Magna-doodle.

A tableau with a foot and the finished work…

The facility of a Twombly!

Her mother interprets the ineffable script.

The work table is itself a work of art…

A swift, sure hand speeds over an uncertain surface: glory!

When we bring up Netflix to watch an episode, she shouts about SPACE SHIP! and DATA! – yep, it’s pretty cute. Here she is looking through my Star Trek “Ships of the Line” book. She always parks on the images of the Enterprise D, naturally.

     The statement above relies on the fact that I am deeply interested in three main aspects of the human condition: being, symbol, and body.

     I am intrigued by the state of evocative subjective experience that Gaston Bachelard described as “the astonishment of being.” Thus, though I am interested art of all kinds, I take particularly to those forms that connect with our embodiment or sense of being. This means the physical world, the objects we use and love, and the bodies we inhabit are particularly important to the sort of art I want to see and make.

     It follows then that I find the expression of meaning through symbol – that is, the potential for objects to accumulate and resonate with meaning – to be a central interest of my art-making practice.  Anything containing meaning has been, as John Dewey wrote, “funded” with importance through the physical interaction and intellectual contemplation human beings have invested in it over time.

     The body is the zone of incident where being-ness and the structures of significance coalesce. Therefore, I foster a deep appreciation for the human body as a container for and calibrator of meaning and knowledge. As a maker of images – be they painted, drawn, or printed – I function as a symbolist in the traditional sense; I create tableaus for the relational contemplation of that which is beyond the facts of appearance. In doing so I hope to stimulate an evocative, transformative experience in my fellow human beings.

Above: me and my daughter drawing. 

There are a lot of reasons we’re interested in this and there are a lot of logistics and options to consider. There’s tens of thousands of dollars to raise, most of which we don’t have just laying around. My wife is much more skilled than I am at holding all of these different issues in mind. She’s able to plan and strategize at a level that I can’t really even understand. So in the midst of this process I really just want to be able to DO something, to add something to it, to help make it happen. 

As I think about this huge thing we’re getting into, I really just want to make sure that one of the other huge things in my life – my art-making – plays some role. I want to make my work mean more than perhaps it would on its own, more than it would do just hanging on a wall. I want my work to actually do something about the nearly 150 million orphans in the world. If, by some miracle, my artworks could help us bring one or two kids to a life of love and intentional care, then I want to do whatever I can to cause that to happen.

Above: Seven Mandalas for the Murky History of Beginnings and Endings, #5. One of the pieces for sale to help fund our adoption. My daughter Miranda helped me make this one.

So I’ve opened up a little etsy shop that features about 50 different artworks, with more to come. My hope is that I can have these works – images that I love and worked very hard to craft – become part of the means by which Alison and I do a different kind of work in the world… something that can make all the difference to a child who needs a mom and dad. 

If you resonate with this sort of thing, I hope you’ll consider going to my etsy shop and purchasing a work. If you don’t see anything there you’re interested in, please check out my flickr and my main website as some of those works are still available as well; I’d be happy to hear from anyone who’s interested in any of the works.

m83 – hurry up we’re dreaming (2011) 

battles – gloss drop (2011)

broken bells – broken bells (2010) 

the national – high violet  (2010) 

doves – kingdom of rust (2009) 

tori amos – abnormally attracted to sin (2009)

bat for lashes – two suns (2009) 

beck – modern guilt (2008)

the shins – wincing the night away (2007) 

the national – alligator (2005)

radiohead – OK computer (2003)

the decemberists – castaways and cutouts (2003) 

yeah yeah yeahs – fever to tell (2003)

broken social scene – you forgot it in people (2002)

doves – the last broadcast (2002)

neko case – blacklisted (2002)

cake – comfort eagle (2001)

modest mouse – building something out of nothing (2000)

holly golightly – God don’t like it (2000)

soul coughing – el oso (1998)

alice in chains – dirt (1992)

the pixies – trompe le monde (1991)

tom waits – rain dogs (1985)

Now if I had to pick 3 absolutely essential recordings from this list, I think I’d pick the Tom Waits, the Neko Case, and the latest The National albums. But, then again, it seems to me that the whole “desert island list” thing is played out and – at least now days – ill-conceived. Right now I can carry pretty much every piece of music I’ve ever owned in the cloud… so let’s not say this is a desert island list, no. Let’s say it’s an electro-magnetic-pulse list. An EMP has hit the earth and YOU – you alone – have a way to play a select bit of music in our post-EMP world. What would you play?

Yes, I think I could survive with some Neko, some Waits, and some National. But, man, I’d really need some Shins and Radiohead…

What are your EMP essentials?

Keep rocking in 2012, folks! (image above taken by Jake Johnson)

One of the song’s enduring aspects is the short, whispered sentence that precedes the opening bars of music. I had listened to the track dozens of times before I heard it, and now it’s something that I love to bend in close to hear – especially when traveling late at night on empty roads, or ensconced in my dark studio trying to suss out glory from paint. Below is the section in question, pulled out and enhanced. What do you think is going on here? I’d love if people left comments suggesting possibilities….

Ghost Writing Intro Whisper (mp3 format)