More about me, by someone else

Tammy Vitale, who is an ArtDC person, posted about our really excellent get together last Friday evening at artomatic, in which a group of about 25 of us viewed and talked about each other's work. She took this cool photo of me talking about my work, which I am posting because there are so few decent photos of me (and you can also see here what the piece looks like now that I've filled in the holes).

I now have a lot of great thoughts and ideas for moving forward with this material/idea, so maybe I'll take photos of my sketch book and post them when we get back from traveling (we're visiting the family in VT and then going to a wedding). You can read what Tammy wrote about my work on her blog here, at the post titled "ArtOMatic 2008, VARC dinner and art presentations" (which I can't seem to get a permalink to, but at the time of this writing it is the second post).

Artomatic update, more good press

After having been away for almost two weeks, I took Leon back to artomatic last night, so that I do do more more tweaking of the piece, restock cards, read the comments book, make sure nothing had exploded, etc.

After several hours of work there are still two small holes left, but overall the texture is now much more flowing, and I think the piece has a great sense of being whole. It's hard to explain the gut feeling I have about it, but maybe after tonight - when the ArtDC artists are doing a walking tour in which each of us get 5 minutes to talk about our work - I'll get some more feedback, and be better able to explain why the piece needs to be whole, or, without holes. I'm still hoping to get over to the space early enough tonight to fix the lights so that it's more evenly back lit, but even if I don't, I'm much happier with the piece now.

I've also received another great mention in a local blog.

Side note - Leon was pretty good last night, waiting forever for me to finish up. He got bored a couple of times, but (with the help of his dump truck and two trains) was able to turn a puddle of rain water and a pile of spilled coffee grounds into literally several hours of entertainment. It probably helped that we took the metro - always fun - and stopped mid-way through my work to buy snacks.

My piece for artomatic is up! But...

My Artomatic wall-hanging sculpture is finished and hung up! I've had more sleep than some other people who were installing at the last minute, but somehow the accumulated lack of sleep over the last week, plus the much deserved half-beer I drank last night after I got home, have conspired to give me the most unpleasant, head-ache-and-upset-stomach feeling of being hung over. Which I haven't felt in so long that it took me hours to even recognize.

Anyway, I finally finished building yesterday, and got it installed on my wall last night. The bulk of the piece came together over the weekend, but figuring out exactly what kind of form it should take, and then tweaking the shape and fixing the edges took an agonizingly long time. It ended up as a circle, about 6' in diameter, back-lit with LED rope lights. It looks really good on the wall, but I couldn't test the lights in the space because the power in my section was out. Hopefully that will be resolved today, but I won't get to see the piece with its lighting until after 5 pm on Friday, when the show is already open to the public. So, fingers crossed on that one - my main concern is that the spill under and behind the filters will look bad.

I also couldn't take a photo of the piece, because my camera has stopped working, again. And unlike last time, whacking it does not have a positive affect. Hopefully I'll have a photo to post on Friday.

And, I keep realizing dumb things I've forgotten to do, like get a guest book to put out in my space. And I didn't put the date of the meet the artists night (Friday, May 16th), or the actual location of my space (10th floor, 1A, NW corner), onto my postcards. Duh. But since I don't know enough people around here to actually mail - or even give - cards to, I can hand write my location on the ones that I do give out. Most of the postcards will serve as publicity in my space, for people to pick up and walk off with, and not knowing how many people are likely to be interested in my work over the course of a month, I ordered 1000. But unfortunately - because someone did ask for them - I didn't have my cards last night. Even though I paid a ridiculous amount to have them shipped by yesterday, they did not arrive, so I'm hoping feverishly that they do arrive today.

I had also brought a charcoal pencil to write on the wall, but was disappointed to find that whatever the paint I mixed up is, it's glossy enough to repel charcoal, so my name and the name of the piece are fainter than intended. So add a black grease pencil to my list of things I still need to get.

All in all, I'm happy. It's not going to be a perfect presentation, but I feel confident that the piece is good. I named it Addiction, part 3.

Artomatic '08

I just registered for Artomatic, which is coming up in May and June. I'm both excited and nervous about the event - it's a great opportunity to put up my work and meet other artists, but it's also a big commitment and, well, I've never done anything quite like it before. In fact, I'm not sure if anything else like it even exists - it takes place in a huge empty office building in the city, anyone can register as long as you can pay the fee and volunteer 15 hours of gallery sitting or installation time. It's a really big thing here, and people from all over come to see it - it's one of the many reasons why the DC art scene is super cool.

I signed up to do an installation, instead of just free-standing 3-d work, because even when I make objects they still tend to hang from the ceiling. However, you can't actually hang stuff from the ceiling of the space, so I'm going to have to 1) figure out what i'm actually installing, and 2) then create some kind of hanging grid that can be supported by whatever walls or partitions I end up with. My date for choosing my space is April 13th, and the installation dates go through May 7th, so I should have plenty time to figure out what I'm actually installing. Still, it is nervousing (yes, that is a made-up word), especially since I'm about to start a full time job and I'm about to have a lot less studio time. But a big factor in why I decided to participate in artomatic this year is because the opportunity to create a brand new, large-scale installation is too good to pass up. I haven't been thinking big at all lately, and this is a great chance to let my imagination run wild.

Art in transition, recap

The show was great, and meeting all the artists made feel like I'm part of something really cool. Lots of people stopped in to see the show, and friends and relatives made it up to see the show, which made me feel like a rock star. To top it all off, I won second prize (a $50 gift card to Pearl Paint, which I spent this morning) and I sold my piece!! I've never sold anything, so I'm still pretty euphoric. The buyer was an art history major in college, and loves collecting art. She seems really nice, so I'm feeling pretty darn lucky that my piece is going to a good home.

Here are images from the show - me with my piece, my piece in the background (to the right of that guy's head, hanging next to the window), Leon and his cousin Rachel admiring a really cool series of clay torsos, and two other views of the gallery.











This last photo is of the two pieces that won first and third prize. Unfortunately, you can't see the first prize piece, because the artist - Dan - is standing in front of his. It's cast grooved steel, and really yummy. I was delighted that he won because, as you can probably tell from my adjective, I really like the piece. The vertical color stripes on the right won third prize. I was very impressed with the quality of the work in general, and I'm really proud to have been a part of the show.

Art In Transition, continued - show info

Here's the postcard for my show. Since I'm not sure how clear the info is on the back, here's part of the press release:

WASHINGTON, D.C.—artdc.org, a Washington, D.C., artist’s forum, presents “Art in Transition Continued” on Saturday, October 13, 2007, in the future Greater Goods building, 1626 U Street, NW, Washington, D.C. 20009. Doors open at noon; an art party is 6 p.m. to midnight."

In total there are 19 artists involved, but yes, that is my piece featured on the card! I was really surprised and delighted to be chosen for the cover image.

Show in DC!!

I'm really excited - I got into a quick show here in DC, the weekend of Oct 12-14. I think the gallery is only going to be open on the 13th, but apparently it's in a very high-traffic area on U street. The show is with a local group, ArtDC.org, of which I've been on the fringes for about 6 months. One of the things that they do is stage 'guerrilla' gallery shows, by borrowing empty spaces that are between uses - apparently this one will open as a boutique of some kind in the next month. The piece they chose is the coffee filters, which is especially exciting, since it's my newest work. They've also decided to use my piece as the cover image, which is especially cool. We should get postcards this week, so I'll post more soon.

I'm also having a meeting this morning with someone about a transformed book project that I've been thinking about for over a year. I have my fingers crossed that it will be well received and he'll want to get behind it -I'm feeling lucky today.