Acclimating

It has been one week since I arrived home from college and it feels as if my body and mind are still acclimating to the change in environment. For lack of better words my eating habits and general health have gone to hell in a handbasket. Two weeks ago my diet was so basic and non processed that it was never an issue digesting and feeling fully energized throughout the day. At the time it wouldn’t be uncommon to make a 7-8AM gym session, and spend 10 hours in the studio with one or two classes in between. Now I just feel disconcerted about allergies, sickness and anxiety. I swear if it were the middle ages I would have died before I reached the age of 20 with the immune system I was given. Wait, I’m pretty sure dying at twenty was average back then… But truthfully, prayer, healthy eating and routine workouts with my fellow brethren are three resolutions in mind.

Being at home has caused a noticeable downshift in the speed and quantity of the making process. Naturally,  the medium I’ve been working with lately is more traditional and less reliant on technology or certain tools. The outdoors usually lends itself to accessibility, subject matter and new ideas. One process in particular is the study of North American songbirds. Using a low-end camcorder with a basic macro video setting, I capture anything from chickadees, nuthatches and titmice inches away from the lens.

Many other art processes are still achievable without the luxury of university facilities. In the long-term an acid bath for steel, zinc and copper plate etchings are things I hope to acquire. More traditional and fully appropriate for the current setting is woodcuts. Also, as of  this week I’ve taken on a more crafty approach to woodworking combined with ink drawings. This methodology came about when I decided to create a simple animal puzzle out of an aromatic cedar board. This project is nearly completed and will end up being a Christmas present. Acrylic laminated coasters with pyrography, ink, and collage are three similar approaches that have sprouted and will certainly be expanded on in the future. I hope everyone reading has a wonderful Christmas and happy holidays.

Here is some footage of the songbirds along with documentation of the December 2011 BFA exhibition. Images were taken by Portia, Devin Henry and Katherine Head.

Party Fowl

Things have been rolling along quite nicely here in the land of undergrad. 2 weeks remain in my existence as a senior at Alfred University. Before Thanksgiving I put together a foolish show called COCKS that consisted of etchings, mono-prints and digital prints of roosters. A student run gallery (that closely resembles a shanty) offered me up the space for a November 18th opening. I couldn’t resist.

A curatorial paper for my Asian Art History class is really grinding my gears this week. It couldn’t be any more inconvenient that all senior work needs to be finalized and ready to setup Monday. In my opinion the overlap of the two deadlines is really quite fowl…..wait what?

Anyway, I’m posting 3 scanned prints from the COCKS show (1 of which is a collaborative diptych with print-maker and video artist Tory Keith) as well as two reductive mono-prints from my junior year. Ciao!

A Taste Of Things To Come

This week has been filled with senior meetings, a tour of group show works, many hours of drawing and one nasty head cold that is making me hate life. As of now I’m keeping this post short with an image that was just completed today. It’s a graphite drawing that will end up in the form of a zinc/steel plate etching. The imagery (like most of my prints) comes from a dream in which a sense of anxiety and fears were overwhelming. I found myself in a large chain linked cage inhabited by exotic birds. The birds  were aggressive and curious throwing my senses in panic. The dimensions of the image is 18×24 and I will likely start the plate next week.

frigid, but fruitful

As the winter air settles day to day, flakes fall then melt off. The western New York landscape changes from vibrant foliage atop the trees to decayed lumps descending to the earth. Although events like this inevitably happen each year I can’t help but to look up at the sky and be overcome with a sense of surreality.

Within this semester I’ve become more independent and somewhat mechanical in terms of work habits. Days almost always begin habitually with a gym session from 7-8AM, a cup of french pressed coffee with breakfast followed by the choice of art history readings, video editing, or drawing/printing in my studio space.

Here are some recently edited photos of work going in my December show. The 1st is a refined frame design from last semester that consists of 3 zinc plate etchings scanned and printed on transparencies. The transparencies are then placed in thinly cut slots so their contents line up in succession of foreground middle ground and background.

The second image (photographed poorly) is a 4 layer reductive monoprint. More specifically, the image was produced using the cmkyk method and printed from an acrylic plate. The color layers are as follows: yellow, orange, red, magenta, cyan. By using a graphite drawn composition I placed it underneath the acrylic to use as a guide. Once the surface of the plate has ink applied to it I then began wiping away material and creating texture in a way that lined up as well as emulated the shape of the detail from the drawing. Mounted on top of the print is a painted poplar frame with a singular slot cut into the center. Within this slot is an 18×24 transparency of a digital print.