the birds and the bugs

The Biodiversity Project

2012-01-24T13:58:00.004-05:00

National Geographic photographer Joel Sartore is working on a new project showcasing endangered animals from the world's zoos and wildlife refuges. Stunning and portentous photos.

http://www.joelsartore.com/galleries/the-biodiversity-project/60/

tumblr

2011-12-01T11:36:00.001-05:00

I made a tumblr:

http://avesmaria.tumblr.com/

Homage to Dunkard Creek Publicity

2011-11-15T13:20:00.001-05:00

The Dunkard Creek show I contributed work to has received some press:

Sierra Club: Artist on the Life and Death of a Creek

Observer-Reporter: Traveling exhibit devoted to Dunkard Creek fish kill

12/8/11 and another - Earth Island Journal: What Killed Dunkard Creek?

Environmental Aesthetics closing reception

2011-11-02T16:22:00.004-04:00

Fe Gallery is hosting a closing reception for Environmental Aesthetics this Friday; if you didn't have a chance to see hibernaculum during the run of the show, stop in.

Environmental Aesthetics Closing Reception
Friday, November 4th
7pm - 9pm
Free and open to the public

image: still from Birds/Passage of Time by Connie Merriman

Fe Gallery is located at 4102 Butler Street in Lawrenceville, and will also be open Thursday and Friday from noon to 3pm and Saturday noon to 4pm.

Reflections update

2011-11-02T16:09:00.001-04:00

Reflections: Homage to Dunkard Creek has closed its run at Arts Monongahela and will open next week at California University of Pennsylvania. The reception is scheduled for Thursday, November 10th at 5pm.

Official diagnosis

2011-10-27T16:00:00.002-04:00

It's official - the U.S. Geological Survey has confirmed that the fungus Geomyces destructans is causing white-nose syndrome in American bat species.

Here's hoping that pinpointing the cause of the bat crash leads to funding, more public awareness, and a stop to the deadly fungus.

Cause confirmed for devastating bat disease

Native American Speaker Reflects at "Reflections" Show

2011-10-14T15:59:00.000-04:00

Reflections: Homage to Dunkard Creek is the show I contributed a mussel-themed piece to, currently on display in West Virginia.

Ann Payne, organizer and curator of the exhibition, writes:

Crayfish, a water-soluble pencil painting by Jana Matusz

A free public reception will be held at Arts Monongahela to honor Joe

Candillo, this year’s principal speaker at the 2011 Peace Tree

Ceremony hosted by the WVU Native American Studies Program. The 5:30

p.m reception for Mr. Candillo is scheduled for Tuesday, October 25th at

Arts Monongahela’s Jackson Kelly Gallery, 201 High Street.

Mr. Candillo’s reception and remarks will take place amidst the

artwork of Reflections: Homage to Dunkard Creek, a collaborative art

exhibit honoring 90 animal species that perished in the 2009 poisoning

of Dunkard Creek, a West Virginia and Pennsylvania stream. The area

surrounding Dunkard Creek was once home to the Monongahela People, a

late woodland Native American culture. Reflections: Homage to Dunkard

Creek’s 90 participating artists are all practicing artists whose

lives are connected to the Monongahela Watershed.

Following the reception at 6 p.m., Candillo will share some traditional

Native American perspectives about the role of humans in the natural

environment and the idea of respect for each other and all of creation.

Candillo, a member of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe, is currently completing

his Ph.D in American Studies at Buffalo, NY. In addition to his

education in anthropology and American Indian Studies, Candillo has

worked as an artist, curator, and exhibit designer. Reflections: Homage

to Dunkard Creek is sponsored by The Mountain Institute: Appalachia

Program.

Environmental Aesthetics opening

2011-09-25T22:17:00.004-04:00

Here they are! Pictures from the opening at Fe Gallery!

A view of hibernaculum as you enter the gallery:

Some detail shots of the bats themselves:

And a view of the installation with people in it, for scale. The walls are about 13 feet tall.

Also a few pictures of some of the wonderful work in the show: Rise Nagin's collage of natural objects and Carin Mincemoyer's mirror-clouds in the gallery's bay windows.

Before I tell you anything about this piece, let me first say that I owe its existence to some very awesome people. hibernaculum would not have been possible without the time, materials, installation help, expertise, and support the following people have generously shared with me: Brandon at Laser Lab Studio, Sam Ditch, Deanna Mance, Alisa Michael, Chris and Kristen Osterwood, Christy Rollinson, David Rollinson, and Katherine Talcott. Also, it was hugely reassuring to work through my first installation with the other artists I showed with - their experience with installation art made everything a little less terrifying for me. Thank you all!

So. About this piece. If you've been reading this blog, you've noticed I've been thinking a lot lately about the invasive fungal infections that are suddenly killing off many bats in North America. This show ended up being the perfect opportunity to work with that idea, and expand on previous themes of paper-constructed animals to create a large-scale work. I wanted to use paper from natural history books to reference my thoughts about how we use science to make sense of the natural world, even in situations where the world is changing faster than we can understand it (often as the result of our own actions). In an earlier entry I mentioned one of the books I used, The Uncivilized Races, or, a Natural History of Man, and supplemented that with more material that was donated to me and that I found at used bookstores: books about native trees of Canada, a textbook on forestry, a book about endangered species from the 1970s, books on evolution.

These bats are all cut with a laser, from a template that I designed. Every single one is attached to cardboard shapes, backed by foam, that were prepared in my studio and installed at the gallery, with some re-adjusting, re-pinning, and filling in as I went. My best estimate of the number of bats is between 6,000 and 7,000, and they average about 100 per square foot.

As far as the shape, I spent a lot of time looking at photos of bats clustered in caves, but for this installation I felt it was more appropriate to respond to the space rather than create a simulation of a natural bat shape. After all, it was already apparent that these were flat paper objects. I did a lot of fussing and adjusting and freaking out about finishing the edges on the sloped part of the ceiling before I realized what I was actually doing was subconsciously making a map . . . which is why those edges remain un-rounded. To me it referenced the geometric structure underneath the bats, which wasn't so visible unless you really inspected the substrate carefully. It also reinforced the analogy between the cities of people, and the cities of bats.

This is the first truly large-scale piece I've ever done. A lot of people at the opening told me it reminded them of lichen, or fur, or leaves, or shelf fungi - all textures I'd hoped it would evoke. I really wanted the piece to be readable and interesting at a lot of levels, from the overall shape and appearance to the individual snippets of non-information legible on each bat.

So there it is! Many thanks to everyone who made it to the opening as well. If you are in Pittsburgh and didn't make it, I hope you can still get to see the piece. I'd welcome any comments or questions. Fe Gallery is open from 12 - 3 on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, and is located at 4102 Butler Street between Fisk and Main Sts. in Lawrenceville. Environmental Aesthetics will be up until November 6th.

"hibernaculum" install in progress

2011-09-19T16:08:00.004-04:00

I'm currently installing hibernaculum at Fe Gallery, so, putting about 8,000 of these guys up on the walls! Opening is this Friday from 7 to 9.

New artist's statement

2011-09-13T16:05:00.000-04:00

I have a new statement that I wrote for my piece at Fe Gallery. Because it isn't explicitly printmaking or drawing like most of my other work, I felt the need for a statement that referenced a wider range of media. I struggle a lot with a writing style that is overly academic, and I would consider this piece, like most artist's statements, continually in progress.

Artist statement

As far as we know, human beings are alone in the animal kingdom in our ability to contemplate our existence in the natural world. The paradox of this awareness is that although we are animals, and of nature, we can never know the natural world at first hand. We are simultaneously within and without the natural world; although we belong to it, in the very act of defining and attempting to understand it, we alienate ourselves from it. Systems of learning and labeling develop from our search for understanding and definition. They become lenses through which we view the natural world.

Museums, libraries, academia - these are all culturally constructed lenses through which we attempt to better understand "nature." In my art, I look at the way these systems and lenses affect that understanding; how they influence people's opinions, how they alienate us from or compare us to the natural world, how they inspire awe and wonder, and how they cause us to alter nature in the very act of observing it. Studying the systems tells us as much about humanity as it does the natural world. Nature, on the other side of the lens, becomes a mirror.

a face lift

2011-09-13T15:42:00.005-04:00

Taking a break from the ol' green and beige polka dots and trying out a new theme. I've always thought my work looked best on dark backgrounds (more reminiscent of old natural history museums?), so maybe I'll keep it this way.

more paper bat photos

2011-08-26T15:17:00.000-04:00

A few pictures of my paper hibernaculum under construction.

And a close-up of some shapes that have captured interesting images:

These bats were made from a falling-apart edition of Rev. John George Wood's The Uncivilized Races, or, a Natural History of Man, a mid-19th century tome about indigenous peoples around the world. It almost deserves its own post, but I'll describe it briefly here. It has pretty much everything you'd expect of a book its age - very period descriptions of the customs, clothing, diets, etc. of a range of populations from the West Indies to Africa to Mongolia. The book is pretty much entirely comprised of descriptions, based on his own travels and also accounts from other Europeans, without any kind of hard scientific content. In some ways it reads much more like a travelogue than what I would consider a scientific text. Surprisingly it's a bit less patronizing and "OOOH look at the natives" gawky than I expected it might be, but obviously, the offensive title of the book and the mere fact that these people are basically being observed as anthropological studies of "lesser" humans says a lot about how some Europeans used to look at the world. (Namely, in a very Euro-centric way.) Many of the illustrations of objects such as pottery, helmets, and weapons are labeled as being from the author's personal collection, which certainly enforces the idea of the subjects of the book as scientific curiosities.

I have other books I'll be using as well - books about the native trees of Canada, scientific journals, and an introductory text to Forestry (I hadn't realized this, but forestry is much more about how to manage forests for the economic benefit of humans and much less about how to manage forests as a habitat for wildlife). More photos as the installation progresses.

Paper bats

2011-08-09T15:04:00.000-04:00

Just a quick update on the paper hibernaculum project - my bats came back today from Laser Lab Studio in Bloomfield and they look terrific. I'm really excited to start putting them all together to make the piece... and anyone who saw my locust installation knows I'm almost crying with joy over the time this will save me. Time I can spend constructing and eventually installing the piece, instead of cutting out a zillion paper shapes and giving myself carpal tunnel in the process. Hooray for technology!

Reflections: Homage to Dunkard Creek

2011-08-04T16:04:00.000-04:00

Those of you who are poring over every detail of this blog (I know you're out there) may have noticed an as-yet-unspoken-of upcoming show sitting in my queue on the left for a few weeks now. I've finally finished my contribution to this project and wanted to share my efforts.

The show, entitled Reflections: Homage to Dunkard Creek, is a collaborative, traveling show documenting all the species of river life in Dunkard Creek, West Virginia that died off during a massive toxic algae bloom in 2009. The bloom was the result of chemical mine waste flowing into the river, already at a low level from industrial water withdrawals, and it was toxic enough and widespread enough to suffocate and kill most of the life within the creek. Dunkard Creek flows into the Monongahela River, a source of drinking water for many people in the region, and thusly eventually into the Ohio and, eventually eventually, the Gulf of Mexico.

Artists selected for this project were given a species and a panel, and asked to create a piece of art inspired by (but not necessarily representing) that species. People were assigned everything from herons to minnows to freshwater copepods. Get excited, folks, because I got the Round Pigtoe Mussel* (known by his scientific friends as Pleuroblema sintoxia). Here's my collage, constructed from engravings I made.

The show opens in Morgantown, West Virginia on September 9th, and will be traveling to locations throughout the Monongahela Watershed in 2012 (details over on the left - updated as I hear more). You can also read more about the creek and see what some of the other artists have submitted at the website created by the show's curator, Ann Payne. You may even live close enough to get to one of the shows in person!

*I am excited. Be honest, would you expect anything else from someone who voluntarily draws dead bugs?

Bats in crisis

2011-07-27T15:08:00.001-04:00

A neighbor spotted some photos of tarantulas and hummingbirds in the last issue of Smithsonian magazine and passed in on to me, but a surprise waited for me within. I stumbled upon another article about white-nose fungus:

What is killing the bats?

It's not too long of an article, but worth reading, since it describes some of the specific ways scientists are trying to study the fungus: how to detect it, how it spreads, how exactly it affects bats. Opinions still seem divided over whether the most deadly symptoms are the weakening of wing membranes, the awakening of bats from hibernation, or some other irritation caused by the fungus.* The longer there is a lack of consensus on what exactly the fungus does, the longer it will take us to develop the most effective way to treat sick bats and stop it from spreading further.

I admit that I fear it could be too late already. This really disheartens me. These scientists are working around the clock to stay ahead of what is becoming a pandemic in the U.S. and their efforts don't seem to be working. White nose is still spreading faster than we can understand it or even track it. Even if we get that far, we're probably looking at losing the majority of the country's bat population, and, as the article states, it will take generations for the population to rebound. And it will come at a high price: a certain rise in the populations of mosquitoes and other insect pests, and thusly a rise in both mosquito-borne disease and crop failures.

I try to take solace in the words of Brooke Slack, one of the biologists studying the bats: "There's a sense of helplessness, [b]ut I don't feel like we can say, 'Well, we've got it, so we give up.' We've got an obligation to move forward."

I'm really excited about my upcoming bat piece - not just from the perspective of working for the first time on a large-scale installation, but also because I want other people to know what is happening too. I think it can seem like a niche issue (as in, Save the spotted two-toed purple hyrax!) but what we are really talking about is our food supply, our protection against disease, and preserving an incredibly important group of animals that occupies a key role in many ecological systems in America. And I really think this message can be spread without the finger-wagging and shaming that sometimes accompanies the most academic or sanctimonious environmental art.

* 9/25/11 A brief update on this - I've since read that starvation from waking up during the winter and irritation of the membrane seem to both be contributing to bat deaths. Better news (maybe) is that the fungus can be killed with fluconazole, which is commonly prescribed for human fungal infections. This of course raises concerns about what else we might accidentally kill if we start pumping aerated anti-fungals into caves, but it's a start. And the scientists are not giving up!

Twelve Batty Bat

2011-07-13T10:51:00.001-04:00

New bats for this fall's Fe Gallery installation. It opens September 23rd; I'm aiming for a few thousand bats before then.

These bats will be a little less homogenous than in the last installation; I'm trying to use found paper from a variety of interesting sources: books on birds, maps on species distribution, photos of animal colonies, texts about exploration, invasion, etc.

Hibernaculum installation at Crazy Mocha

2011-04-22T11:38:00.000-04:00

Here are some newer, better (sorta) pictures of the bat installation I did at Crazy Mocha Bloomfield. The piece was de-installed last night to make room for a new show opening this week, but it - or something like it - will likely reappear in my future works. I used this as a sort of installation "sketch" for what I'm thinking about at Fe Gallery for this fall.

The Forest Through The Trees

2011-04-13T22:16:00.000-04:00

Hello again, everyone. So I had another one of those "update every other day" weeks in February and haven't paid enough subsequent attention to this blog. Regardless, here are some very overdue photos of my and Deanna's opening for The Forest Through The Trees. Details of some of the pieces can be found in one of my earlier entries.

From left to right: Deanna's work, a collaborative installation of tiny paper birds in bottles, and more collaborative drawings.

The fox on the wall is a watercolor of mine, as is the blue desk filled with paper birds. The birch boxes filled with intaglio and collage are Deanna's.

Two pieces of mine: a "bird chorus" of tiny stuffed intaglio birds, and an installation of paper locusts. I started the locust project in Chautauqua in 2009 and I'm really glad I finally got to try it out. It seemed like I spent forever printing and assembling hundreds of these, but I have to admit I was a little disappointed with how small the whole mass looked on the wall together.

A shot of our collaborative drawings

Deanna's work and admirers

Since my last update, I've continued to think about the bat die-offs and how I might interpret them through a piece like the paper locusts. Fortunately, I have been invited to explore these ideas in a show this fall, so brace yourselves for more photos of paper animals.

As I delve into ideas for this show, I continue to find myself influenced by the past too. Most people who have been to the Mattress Factory Museum in the past few years have probably seen Ruth Stanford's What Remains on Sampsonia Way, an installation she made on the front of an old row house commemorating the lives of that house's former occupants. Photos at that link also show the piece she made on the inside, called In the Dwelling House. I had the pleasure of helping Ruth with the installation of the latter work, and getting an intimate view of her perspective on the traces people leave behind in cities has had a permanent impact on my work. (And, um, you'll notice that cabinet stocked with glass jars filled with detritus found in the house - a big visual and conceptual influence for me, obviously.) I draw animals, but in essence I've really felt that my work is about the way that humans perceive nature, and how concepts like antiquity and preciousness and knowledge influence how we show and talk about "nature" to other humans. Also, as I've settled in Pittsburgh, a city truly at the crossroads of ghosts from the past and promises of the future, her works about what has been have continued to resonate.

One of the front stones of the house has been replaced with a stone bearing a quote from novelist Italo Calvino, from his book Invisible Cities, a short work of fiction about Marco Polo in the court of Kublai Khan, describing cities he's visited in his travels across Asia. I've owned a copy for years, but finally sat down and read it. It really spoke to me, a lover of museums and old things, a person who has lived abroad in a place that felt bizarrely more like home, and a simultaneously exploring, begrudging, and affectionate occupant of a very strange city. A few passages I marked:

"This city which cannot be expunged from the mind is like an armature, a honeycomb in whose cells each of us can place the things he wants to remember: names of famous men, virtues, numbers, vegetable and mineral classifications, dates of battles, constellations, parts of speech."

"Arriving at each new city, the traveler finds again a part of his past of his that he did not know he had: the foreignness of what you no longer are or no longer posses lies in wait for you in foreign, unpossessed places."

"The city, however, does not tell its past, but contains it like the lines of a hand, written in the corners of the streets, the gratings of the windows, the banisters of the steps, the antennae of the lightning rods, the poles of the flags, every segment marked in turn with scratches, indentations, scrolls."

Somewhere in the intersection of this, and Ruth's work, and the bat die-off, is the genesis of new pieces. Oh, and I'm planning another collaboration, too, this time with my friend and fellow Chautauqua alum Sara Gibson. A small subset of her work is found at her blog, where it will be obvious that we share a love of nature, glass containers, and clusters of small objects. Stay tuned, everyone.

bat crash

2011-02-22T18:14:00.001-05:00

Last December, an article appeared in National Geographic about the white-nose fungus that is causing massive, frightening die-offs in bat colonies around North America. The fungus has been on the radar of bat enthusiasts for a few years now - everyone in Chautauqua was watching for it in 2008 - so it's not breaking news. (In fact, the PA Game Comission's map on this website indicates that it had already reached Buffalo by the end of 2010, so Chautauqua can't be far behind.)

This article comes at a scary time for people paying attention to animals around the world, especially in the wake of the catastrophic oil disaster in the Gulf. It's even easier to sensationalize every ecological hiccup in the wake of a string of ill-timed (and highly publicized) animal die-offs in the winter of 2010-2011. Yet, it's pretty clear that the fungus is not normal, and it's spreading fast. At this point it's more a question of when the fungus will reach every bat in America, not if. And with many species already critically endangered, and all bats responsible for a lot of pollinating and insect control, the impact could truly be devastating on not just our food supply, but ecological systems across the continent.

I did some poking around to see how much more we'd figured out since the article was published. I'll admit I didn't go digging in library archives - just the internet - but it seems to me that not too much has changed. We're still waiting on evidence, I guess. I read a botanist's website that pointed out that we still don't have absolute scientific proof that the fungus is the actual cause of death. At best, at this point it's assumed to be an indirect cause. Scientists are still not absolutely sure - "scientific proof" speaking - that the fungus is what's disrupting hibernation and causing the snowballing of fat loss, metabolism disruption, and wing damage that is probably leading to mid-winter deaths. Right now, it's a probable guess.

I got to thinking about what it means to have scientific certainty about anything. The amount of irrefutable evidence required, the countless hours spent by lab workers, PhD candidates, scholars, etc. in search of the truth. The enormous amount of effort building skyscrapers of scientific knowledge, brick by brick, that can be dismantled by a public that is ill-informed, uninterested, or driven by fear.

Science, as illuminating as it is, is sometimes like a laser pointer seeking out a fish in the ocean. As much as we're able to discover with our advanced methods of seeing, sensing, and analyzing the word, a big part of me worries that the research won't ever keep up with the rate at which we're changing the planet. I wonder if we will find the truth quickly enough.

new bird collage-box

2011-02-21T20:22:00.001-05:00

I haven't been posting enough images lately, so here are some shots of a new piece I'm working on:

Collective wisdom from my old sketchbooks

2011-02-08T21:57:00.001-05:00

One of the hard things, when you're painting, is, "what?"
   Gary Hume, artist

You don't owe anything to the work you've done previously.
   Chris Sperandio, artist

Nature is a mirror onto which we project our own ideas and values, but it is also a material reality that sets limits . . . the nonhuman world is real and autonomous . . . but the paradox of our human lives is that we can never know that world at first hand.
   William Cronon, environmental historian

Don't wait to do your "good" ideas. Act on every idea; you'll inevitably make bad art. Don't strive to get it right on the first try. Strive to make art each time you have an idea. Don't strike ideas down, because you achieve by doing, not thinking.
   paraphrased from Deborah Aschheim, artist

Plato suggests . . . that memory is like an aviary inside your head, with all these birds flying around, such that you might reach in for a ringdove and accidentally pull out a turtle dove instead.
   David Wilson, director of the Museum of Jurassic Technology, as quoted by author Lawrence Weschler

The ivory tower of science is in a ruin. Science is not a pure realm of truth beyond the taints of ideology and business, but a field of ideas enmeshed in a power struggle. Increasingly industry and economics dictate the direction and priorities of research. Whilst informed by science, we are ever vigilant against claims of scientific neutrality, and ever skeptical of the "official story" of natural history presented by scientific institutions.
   Mark Dion, extracted from a manifesto for artists working with or about the living world

We are the species in control, and it is up to us.
   Donald Johanson, anthropologist and discoverer of Austalopithecus afarensis fossil "Lucy"

so, an update

2011-02-02T16:40:00.001-05:00

It's one month later. How has my "make art every day" mantra been going?

Well, I'm reminded of the five-year plan I was encouraged to make as an undergrad in my senior thesis class. On Saturday I'll be participating in a school-to-professional forum at Carnegie Mellon University this weekend, so I dug up my senior packet and five-year plan to take a look at what I thought I had in store for myself back in 2005:

spring 2006: graduate from CMU
summer 2006: work part-time and find a job in one of the following cities: Austin, Portland, San Francisco, Chicago
fall 2006: relocate to new city and begin working part or full time at a nonprofit institution
end of 2006: apply to grad school for the fall of 2007
2007: start grad school

Had I followed this, I'd probably have an MFA by now, and I'd almost certainly be living somewhere else. For those of you following along at home, I've managed to stay in Pittsburgh, work 3 years in retail, get married, buy a house, and ... not go to grad school. On the other hand, I've had over ten shows in the last few years, made enormous strides in my art, had an awesome residency and later job in Chautauqua, and, well, hey, I'm married and I own a house. And finally, after a few years of retail and unemployment I did score a job at an awesome nonprofit. Not so bad.

While I was poking around on my hard drive I also uncovered a lot of old cover letters for job opportunities long past (unsurprisingly, a few were for the Mattress Factory). The letters and my plans were a window into my 21-year-old self, who, at the time, was ready to hit the diving board running and plunge headfirst into a mix of prestigious jobs and higher education.

Let it suffice to say that life rarely unfolds the way in which you intend. I snagged the first steady job I could find out of college and intended for it to be a temporary stop on my way to career greatness. I found myself in the same place two years later treading water in a job I wasn't super thrilled about, plagued by doubt about my situation, my education, even why I was making art and how to deal with it existing solely in the echo chamber of my own judgment. But, after a residency, a year of unemployment, then returning to my old job, and finally moving on to the Mattress Factory, I do feel like I've gone somewhere.

Let it also suffice to say that as a young person ready to flee the college scene I really underestimated Pittsburgh. I confess I thought the city had nothing to offer beyond a few larger museums, but I've found a lot of small galleries, local talent, and a supportive and genuine atmosphere that has been a good place to develop as an artist. I do think we are a city poised on the brink of a greater role in arts, technology, and re-invention than we've had before.

Okay, so, what I am really taking up all this space to say is, it's hard to predict in what direction life will take you. Best laid plans of mice and men yadda yadda. Lesson learned, although sometimes I get pretty down when I think about how much I should have accomplished five years out of school.

Long story short, I broke my promise to myself in early January and, feeling creatively uninspired by nature fast asleep in the dead of winter, haven't made much of anything. Tonight I'm about to sit down and try my hardest to re-start.

2010: my year in review. Plus, uh, the future.

2011-01-03T18:08:00.001-05:00

This was a fortunate and exciting year for me that involved:

• showing in four exhibitions
• participating in the Three Rivers Arts Fest as an Emerging Artist, and winning Best in Show
• moving on to a new job as Volunteer Coordinator/Visitor Services Assistant at the Mattress Factory
• way more bicycling
• buying a house
• finally going on a honeymoon with my husband
• ending the year with a great collaboration between me and Deanna
• my first official press coverage in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

2010 was chaotic and somewhat stressful, but full of amazing opportunities. I'm looking forward to the coming year, and I've decided to take some time off of exhibiting to create new bodies of work. I need to carve out more time in my life to create and explore, and I felt like a lot of my "art" time this past year was spent prepping work I had already done. Some goals for the coming year:

• make art every day
• draw more
• get back into (clarinet) playing shape
• draw inspiration from the work of others without feeling intimidated or defeated (constant battle. suggestions from those fighting it?)

I've got a big year ahead. Happy 2011!

You must read this

2010-12-17T12:28:00.000-05:00

I'm a big fan of WNYC's public radio show Radiolab, wherein "Big questions are investigated, tinkered with, and encouraged to grow" in a manner most interestingly. Topics range from linguistics to animal behavior to mathematical theory to what happens when you sleep, and it always manages to be fascinating, if sometimes a little conceptually scattered. Robert Krulwich, one of the show's two hosts, maintains an occasional blog on NPR's website that follows a similar exploratory arc, and the latest entry was a great one (read it here).

He covers the work of two people: Vi Hart's funny, inventive videos about "doodling" and mathematics, and a lengthly essay by Paul Lockhart about the (many) problems with mathematics education. I really, really recommend watching the video and reading the essay in full.

Lockhart's essay is damning, interesting, and a great read. There are some problems - for one, he lacks a sophisticated understanding of what visual art is when he compares it to music and mathematics, but to be fair he hasn't had the post-post-modern conceptual perspective (or indoctrination) that most of us contemporary artists have. Now that art can exist solely in the realm of "ideas," it can be a concept, an action, a performance. (I know this isn't really new to anyone familiar with, say, Jackson Pollock, but every so often I'm amazed by how revolutionary and far-seeing these ideas were in the 50s and 60s. We take it for granted now that we aren't all stuck painting placid landscapes trying to get into the Paris Conservatory.) Art, like pure mathematics, need not be confined to the physical world. The best art never has been. Like Lockhart points out, Michelangelo had other things on his mind than decorating when he envisioned the Sistine Chapel ceiling.

His critique of math educators and the "institution" of learning is absolutely scathing. I'm not sure how I would feel if I were a math teacher and read this. (Or any teacher. He's pretty harsh on the idea of pedagogy overall.) All the same, I think he has some great points to make about the need to approach mathematics with the same creativity, playfulness, and inventive problem-solving we use to explore music, art, poetry, and the other arts.

While I read, I realized that many of my own artistic and intellectual heroes - Leonardo da Vinci, Leon Battista Alberti, James Audubon, Archimedes - approached mathematical or logistical problems with a creativity we reserve now for artmaking. Having a teacher take this tack with me might have avoided the complete mathematical paralysis I have as an adult. I can hardly approach math beyond simple arithmetic, although I don't really care about that (you don't think I use trig when I'm engraving, do you?). Instead, I wish that I had been encouraged to think about mathematical problems the way he describes, by formulating my own proofs through creative thinking, trial and error, rebuttal, discussion.

There is sort of a tie-in here, finally. Working with Deanna over the past year and doing a lot of free-form, responsive, automatic drawing (or "doodling," a word we both hate) has really put my educational background in perspective. Sometimes I feel really conflicted about what having a BFA means, particularly from an established school with a great reputation, like, ahem, Carnegie Mellon. In the end, I feel like I learned what I was supposed to from art school - how to see, how to think, how to create. Your pencil, and what comes out of it, is not really as important as what's happening between your ears and behind your eyes. Yet, getting an education in art is always sort of walking a tightrope over a sea of institutionalized technique, and some schools fall into it, even the best ones. For years, that technique was what I thought I wanted - that I couldn't be a real artist until I learned perspective, or anatomy, or how to use oil paint properly. CMU is a rarity in art schools in that it really stresses a conceptual vocabulary in its art students, to the admitted sacrifice of technical facility in some traditional areas.

Frankly, at this point I couldn't care less about whether I can draw a proper vanishing point to create perfect bricks in two-point perspective. I still hate oil paint. I'm pretty good at anatomy. But in the end, those are tools. They're not your vision. It's harder to be original and creative and exploratory, to make mistakes and search in the dark, but that's what real art - and math - is. As a person and artist who's always craved structure, rules, and predictability, it is a particular challenge to remind myself that the people goofing off in class with their own amazing projects are sometimes the visionaries on the way to greatness. It's a challenge to maintain spontaneity and creativity and free thinking. I try, though.

The Forest Through the Trees in Trib-Review

2010-12-16T16:01:00.000-05:00

Deanna Mance's and my show gets reviewed in the Trib!

2 artists work on the big picture, details, in 'The Forest Through the Trees'

countdown begins

2010-11-01T14:17:00.004-04:00

November was here before I even realized it, and my opening's right around the corner! Here are the details.

My and Deanna Mance's show opens this Friday. Come see the fruits of our collaboration, new installations, and new drawings! An image of our postcard for the show is attached.

THE FOREST THROUGH THE TREES

Deanna Mance and Maria Mangano

The two Best in Show winners of the 2010 Three Rivers Arts Festival collaborate to explore themes of chaos and order, systems and searching, nature and humanity.

opening at 709 Penn Gallery on Friday, November 5th, 6:00 - 8:00 pm

show continues through January 2, 2011

709 Penn Avenue, in the heart of the Cultural District in downtown Pittsburgh

hope to see you there!

sneak peek!

2010-10-14T11:01:00.000-04:00

A few pictures of my and Deanna's collaborative drawings, and a detail shot of a watercolor I finished last night.
We've been working on these drawings by sitting down together with two at a time, and switching drawings every two minutes. Although I've had exercises in drawing class where people briefly trade drawings, this is the first time I've tried to create entire pieces this way. I think they're turning out really well, and I'm sure that's helped by the fact that we have a similar aesthetic vision and had no trouble agreeing on the use of fine-line marker. It would be much harder to do this with someone who had a really different style or wanted to use oil pastels or paint.
As we've done these, I've tried hard to notice what Deanna is doing to the paper during her two minutes, and then incorporate and be inspired by her aesthetic and her markmaking, rather than just try to wedge my own marks in between hers.

pile of pigeons and a reindeer

2010-09-26T22:43:00.001-04:00

Getting down to business for my and Deanna's show in November. The first picture is a detail shot of a collaborative drawing (one of many).

If that last one looks familiar, it might be because you've seen the ancestors of that passenger pigeon pile here. These ones are newly minted and destined for a different piece.

amazing inspiration!

2010-08-25T15:35:00.001-04:00

This artist is, to say the least, several steps ahead of me. Check out this wonderful piece:

Polly Morgan, fine art taxidermy

brain gobbedlygook: reworking the artist statement

2010-08-20T11:28:00.002-04:00

Artist's Statement
In the museum, we re-interpret the natural world through the lens of human culture. Desiccated and dusty, its skins, bones, husks, and eggs are collected, sorted, and boxed in the pursuit of understanding the world outside of humanity. Inspired by the museum environment, I use the techniques of the curator and the printmaker to examine my own reactions to nature and how we define it.

redux ad addendum...

The museum is a "lens" of human culture through which we interpret the abstract concept of nature.

The act of observing, sampling, and classifying "nature" changes it. Furthermore, humans have a limited ability to conceive of a world outside of their own understanding. Ostensibly, understanding the idea of "nature" in a context other than how it is defined by humanity may be difficult or impossible.

I think we search for order and meaning in the universe to help us understand the chaos, pain, and mystery that is part of the human experience. We search for signs, messages, and explanations, and the truth. The search is manifested in religion, and in art, and philosophy, but also in science, and in boxes and boxes of birds and eggs and stuffed specimens stacked in museums.

What is scientific truth? Nature according to the proven empirical and theoretical laws of physics and chemistry? Is it limited in helping us understand the metaphysical, the mysterious? The painful and unjust?

--

I have always struggled with having an "elevator statement" for an artist statement. Brevity is not my strong suit, and at times I feel only a longer statement will do. I understand that, to some degree, at least, my work should speak for itself, but sometimes the easiest way to get ideas out is to write it. I wonder a lot if my entire approach to concept within my work alienates people who don't have a love for the academic and words.

some thoughts on work

2010-08-02T16:20:00.004-04:00

I've been gone a long time. In summation, most of what's happened since May:

I started a new job at the Mattress Factory, a museum of contemporary installation art where I'd worked in the past as an intern and installer. Now I'm the Visitor Services Assistant/Volunteer Coordinator.

I participated in the Three Rivers Arts Festival in downtown Pittsburgh as a first-time vendor; happily, I was also honored with the Best in Show award for the first week of the festival. Happily-er, the second week's Best in Show honoree is a fellow artist and friend of mine named Deanna Mance, and we're collaborating on an upcoming show! Check out her beautiful art here.

In late June I had my trial-by-fire at my new job when I organized 50-some volunteers for our annual Garden Party, a huge party and fundraiser, celebrated in a way that only the Mattress Factory can.

I also joined the executive committee of Group A, a local guild and one of the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts guilds.

My husband and I finally bought the house we've been living in since 2006. Yay homebuyer tax credit!

My new job, and all the administrative work in the arts I've been focusing on since June, is great. But as August unfolds before me, I've noticed that I haven't really focused much on my own art this summer. Even the work for TRAF was prepping what I already had finished; I haven't had the chance to create new work since my "kapliczek" pieces for the Responding show this past spring. Also, one of the most important (and sad) decisions I had to make this year was to not return to Chautauqua, because I've committed to a job here. Without the facilities and time made available to me by being there, I've spent pitifully little time working on my own art since the spring.

Part of my dip in creativity is surely due to working - for the first time since college, I have what is essentially a full-time job that is not working on my art. Although my schedule is far more regular than it was at my previous job, I'm still learning how to manage my time. Buying the house, learning the ropes at a new job, and feeling somewhat creatively lost without the presence of Chautauqua's print studio all contributed to a pretty low artistic output for the summer. Additionally, sometimes when you get home and your list of things to do is so large and complicated, the easiest thing is to do nothing at all.

There are good things about being home for my first Pittsburgh summer since 2007, despite the dreadful heat; the biggest of which is finally being around my husband during his somewhat relaxed summer schedule. There's also barbecues, neighbors, the garden, the joys/pains of home improvement, and BikeFest, which is still to come.

The summer's not over yet! And even beyond that, art is over the horizon.

marketing myself

2010-06-01T15:15:00.002-04:00

It's been a while since my last post, and I've been quite busy!
Back in February I applied for a scholarship with the Three Rivers Arts Festival; they run a program for emerging artists that covers booth fees and other costs related to participating in the festival. Fortunately, I was one of the ones selected, and I'll be showing my prints this coming weekend as part of the Artists' Market! I'll also be participating in the New Juried Visual Art Exhibition, which showcases talent from Pittsburgh and the surrounding counties.

Here are all the details:

Three Rivers Arts Festival
Gateway Center & the Point, Pittsburgh, PA
June 4 - 12

you can find me at:
Gateway Center Plaza, Booth 87
June 4 - 8, from noon to 8pm

New Juried Visual Art Exhibition
Trust Arts Education Center
June 4 - 12

You can also check out some of the other artists participating in the emerging artist program here. I hope to see you there!

website for new piece!

2010-04-08T15:10:00.003-04:00

I've constructed a sister-blog to this one for my new art piece, kapliczek (shrines). Please check it out! New photos will be added as more shrines are installed.

very small work in progress

2010-03-29T17:38:00.003-04:00

A few images of pieces I'm working on for an upcoming show at Future Tenant. It opens April 16th. For a sense of scale, the starlings in the second photo are jellybean-sized. The box is about 3" wide.

peas in pods

2010-03-28T23:37:00.001-04:00

Just stumbled upon this flickr feed courtesy of stream-of-consciousness art website butdoesitfloat:

Herman de Vries: leaves, beans, mothwings, etc.

leftovers

2010-02-25T10:13:00.004-05:00

Some birds that didn't make it into frames for the Paper show.

owls and robins

2010-02-18T09:16:00.001-05:00

This was passed on to me by fellow artist and paper aficionado Seth Clark:

The Paper Sculpture of Annawili Highfield

(pa' - per) opening

2010-02-03T10:29:00.005-05:00

Photos from our recent opening at the Gallery on Baum. Yes, that's a guy playing the theremin.

Also featuring:

Andrea Muha and her cityscapes of Pittsburgh,

Stuffed birds and prints of wrens (from guess who),

Kelly Blevins's Masks of Mischief,

A large abstract triptych by Joren Dykstra,

And, on the tan wall, five collages of forts and abandoned houses by Seth Clark.

Many thanks to all who were able to make it to the opening, and also to the Gallery!

Yet Another Upcoming Show

2010-01-27T10:19:00.002-05:00

I'm in another show opening this Friday with Group A at Fe Gallery. Here's the postcard!

Pictures from the (pa - per) opening coming soon.

works in progress

2010-01-08T13:11:00.001-05:00

New engravings for the show in January at the Gallery on Baum.

More from Small is the new Big

2010-01-04T16:37:00.003-05:00

Also, some shots of the gallery.

Finally, pictures from the show!

2010-01-04T16:11:00.005-05:00

We had a great turnout at the Small is the new Big opening, and I sold a few things too! Things have calmed down enough for me to post some photos, although work is beginning for some upcoming opportunities.

yes!

2009-12-11T23:48:00.003-05:00

Check out this post at the Bittersweet Harvest blog!

one last sneak peek before the opening!

2009-12-03T12:16:00.000-05:00

Here's one last image of the pieces I'm working on for the show.

Opening in One Week ...

2009-12-03T12:06:00.005-05:00

I'll be participating in this show, which opens next Thursday. Come check it out, if only to see how we are going to fit 625 pieces into Fe Gallery!

miniature amphibianses

2009-11-05T08:42:00.002-05:00

Another photo of work for my upcoming show. I don't want to give too much away, but I'm excited with how these are coming along and wanted to post it.

works in progress

2009-10-23T18:51:00.005-04:00

I'm back! I apologize for the long absence in posting. Planning a wedding is time-consuming, especially when it's your own.

I have a few photos of new pieces I'm working on for a small works show coming up in December at Fe Gallery. They are all detail shots, which is why they look a little funny and rough around the edges - a 1/4" x 1/4" drawing looks very different blown up for all the internet to see.

the bubble bursts

2009-09-04T09:28:00.004-04:00

I'm back from Chautauqua, and because my wedding is 15 days away, I have not found a lot of time to post anything art-related. Until the craziness has passed and the dust settles, I'll leave you with some images from my last week at the Institute. Things got very quiet after the students left and we spent most the remaining days battening down the hatches for the winter.

One last glimpse of the cleaned and locked-up print studio through the antique warped glass . . .

Kilnmaster Kyle, kiln tech Dan, and I visit Lake Erie.

pictures from Erie

2009-08-07T10:28:00.007-04:00

Here are some pictures from my trip to the Erie Art Museum with the ceramics department. The building is this neat old repurposed bank built in the 1830s.

We were there to see the work of ceramicist Kurt Weiser, who paints these incredibly intricate narrative scenes on his slipcast vessels.

I also spied some Kiki Smith in their bronze collection . . .

And a shelf of Krishnas.

infestation

2009-08-05T08:22:00.001-04:00

I'm trying to squeeze work days in between trips to Syracuse and visits from family and friends, so posts will be less frequent for a few weeks. I'll be posting some pictures of my trip to Erie with the ceramics department, but until then, here's a photo of the beginnings of a new project. Big things coming to the Chautauqua print studio . . . or a lot of little things . . .

Whatever you do in life, think higher and feel deeper.

2009-07-27T18:41:00.005-04:00

Today I stuffed myself into the very packed Amphitheater to attend a lecture by Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, humanitarian, journalist, professor, and author of Night, his memoir about surviving Auschwitz and other concentration camps during the Holocaust.

His talk explored what makes humans moral. It was a complex subject - and a complex talk - that I won't try to write much about, except to reiterate the most important of his points that I took away from the talk (one of those is the title of this post); those being, that morality stems from respecting the Otherness of the Other. Also, he spoke about how morality, and right/wrong, is above all governments, all societies, and maybe even our human perception of God and the way his/her good/evil is represented through religion to us. He spoke about how everyone, athiests, agnostics, and people of all faiths, have an ability to be moral, and that morality isn't something that is learned or exists only in a religious context.

c-town as usual

2009-07-25T10:22:00.003-04:00

Not too much exciting news to post. Been busy with class, so no new pieces to post. WNED, the Buffalo public radio/tv station, was hanging around Chautauqua shooting a documentary for PBS that will air next fall. I shot some pictures of the Ceramic department's raku firing that you can check out over at Kyle's blog.

We're officially half done with the season; our print instructor, Craig Taylor, is leaving today, so I'm on my own as far as maintaining the studio and helping the students for the rest of the summer.

I'm out for the weekend - Sara Gibson, my roommate from when I was up here last summer, is visiting.

I'll leave you with some shots of Diana, our work study, and Tom Raneses, our instructor for weeks 1 and 2, hard at work . . .

Finally, new art

2009-07-18T14:53:00.004-04:00

I'm in Syracuse for the weekend, but somewhere in between the wedding dress fitting and envelope addressing, I figured I'd post some photos of new etchings. Below, turtles and a martin nest in the clouds.

The Art You've Been Waiting For

2009-07-14T22:50:00.003-04:00

I've got new prints hot off the press, but haven't taken pictures yet. In the meantime, I wanted to write about a piece of art that was here on Monday . . . the Porta-Hedge!

Bringing the outside to the inside, and vice versa, it's a trailer disguised as topiary with artificial Christmas tree foliage. It's supplied with field and wildlife guides, blackboards, peepholes to the outside, a small video screen for viewing footage of the trailer's four hidden cameras, and a bathroom. Plus real plants. Below, a shot of the interior.

Porta-Hedge is the work of Justin Shull, a fellow Chautauqua alum ('03 and '07), and you can read about it and its upcoming US tour here.

Also, here's a picture of a new etching I'm working on, based on an afore-posted sketchbook drawing.

More pictures of new work coming soon!

An unexpected visitor

2009-07-07T14:46:00.002-04:00

Look what Don found this morning on the quad!

It's a male Polyphemus moth; just couldn't wait to post it!

Zinnia anticipation

2009-07-06T08:27:00.004-04:00

I found these giant, gorgeous foxgloves on a bike ride yesterday. Really they were large enough to be badgergloves. I wanted to take them with me, but the blossoms were too fragile.
Also yesterday, our Kilnmaster, Kyle Houser, gave a lecture on his wonderfully kitschy, blobby, tattooed ceramic work. Below are some slides from the lecture:

And finally . . . I'm waiting in extreme anticipation for the blooming of my chartreuse zinnias. Perhaps my patience will be rewarded this week?

Hesse on artists

2009-07-01T21:51:00.004-04:00

"There are a good many people of the same kind as Harry. Many artists are of his kind. These persons all have two souls, two beings within them. There is God and the devil in them; the mother's blood and the father's; the capacity for happiness and the capacity for suffering; and in just such a state of enmity and entanglement toward and within each other as were the wolf and man in Harry. And these men, for whom life has no repose, live at times in their rare moments of happiness with such strength and indescribable beauty, the spray of their moment's happiness is flung so high and dazzlingly over the wide sea of suffering, that the light of it, spreading its radiance, touches others, too, with its enchantment. Thus, like a precious, fleeting foam over the sea of suffering arise all works of art, in which a single individual lifts himself for an hour or so high above his personal destiny that his happiness shines like a star and appears to all who see it as something eternal and as a happiness of their own. All these men, whatever their deeds and works may be, have really no life; that is to say, their lives are not their own and have no form. They are not heroes, artists, or thinkers in the same way that other men are judges, doctors, shoemakers or schoolmasters. Their life consists of a perpetual tide, unhappy and torn with pain, terrible and meaningless, unless one is ready to see its meaning in just those rare experiences, acts, thoughts and works that shine out above the chaos of such a life. To such men the desperate and horrible thought has come that perhaps the whole of human life is but a bad joke, a violent and ill-fated abortion of the primal mother, a savage and dismal catastrophe of nature. To them, too, however, the other thought has come that man is perhaps not merely a half-rational animal but a child of the gods and destined to immortality."

Herman Hesse, Steppenwolf

Perhaps a bit melancholy, but I think there is some truth in this.

52nd Chautauqua Annual and some other cool art

2009-07-01T20:31:00.004-04:00

Sunday was the opening of the 52nd Chautauqua Annual Exhibition of Contemporary Art, as well as an exhibition of National Geographic photography by Annie Griffiths Belt, and some incredibly neat sculptures by Anne Lemanski. I had not seen her work until now, but clearly, I am a fan.These animals are sewn together from paper. The deer is made from aerial photographs of housing developments, and the pygmy hog (native to India) is made of paper with images of brushfires. Inside the pig's nose:
My favorite bird of the group, made of an astral map:
Materials included old illustrations, collage, film negatives, and road maps.
This piece (out in the sculpture garden, and part of the Annual) is by Roberly Bell, who is also coming to teach here this summer.

Week 1 begins

2009-07-01T20:10:00.005-04:00

There's Stanley's painty bike , and below . . .

That blurry man with the gray jacket and white shirt is Garrison Keillor! Week 1 in Chautauqua started with his visit to the amphitheater, plus the 52nd Chautauqua Annual Exhibition (which I'll get to in the next post). Keillor's performance consisted of twenty minutes of singing (with some audience participation) peppered with jokes about Lutherans and Unitarians, followed by several long monologues about Lake Wobegon, one of which had to do with the necessity of making potato salad for family get-togethers from scratch. He wrote up a short web version of this skit on Salon.

By now, all the students are here. The ballerinas (also known as bunheads) have also arrived so that they can stomp around to loud music below our apartments when we are all trying to take naps. The art students just finished a two-day marathon of figure drawing, the instructors are all here, and we've started a regular class schedule. Stanley Lewis, one of the painting instructors, arrived yesterday with his painted bike in tow.

We had our first printmaking class today with about fifteen students, which was double what I expected - good for printmaking, not as good for our office, which will not have enough tools or proof paper for all of them until we can order more. Tom launched into an etching demo immediately and paused every ten minutes or so to allow me to interject some Rules of Communal Print Shop Usage, such as, Do Not Mix Bleach and Ammonia, or, I Just Repainted This Studio So Please Clean Up After Yourselves. We got a big new ventilation system installed in the print studio to cut down on brain cell loss from acid and solvent fumes, too. We mixed the first batch of acid up today, so I will be etching soon and hopefully have photos of some new work to post!

More photos before the storm

2009-06-27T18:21:00.004-04:00

New chairs in the studios, and also the first flower of my wildflower window box to bloom this year.

Day 1 in empty Chautauqua

2009-06-24T21:28:00.010-04:00

Rolled into Chautauqua today and took some photos of the place before it becomes overrun by vacationers and students . . .

For anyone not in the know, I am spending eight weeks at the Chautauqua Institution this summer. It's a community founded in the late 19th century as a sort of intellectual, artistic, and spiritual retreat, located on Chautauqua Lake in Western New York State.* In addition to lectures, concerts, and other events/facilities at the Institute, there are schools for dancers, musicians, actors, and artists. I'm working as the printmaking technician for the art school, which I attended last year.

* Note to all you out-of-staters and New York City-ans: Note that I do not say Upstate New York, because we are in the Buffalo/Western region over here. "Upstate" New York is the capital region north of New York City (ie., Albany). Just want to point that out.

new neighbors

2009-06-05T09:17:00.003-04:00

This little guy was on my neighbor's front porch, patiently waiting for mom to come drop worms in his mouth. Since he couldn't fly away, I was able to get pretty close.

Fe Gallery Celebration on Friday!

2009-05-14T16:10:00.004-04:00

Fe Gallery in Lawrenceville is turning 5 years old and is celebrating with a party and art auction Friday (that's tomorrow) at 8 pm! There will be works by hundreds of artists for sale, including one of my etchings. I won't be able to make it to the party, but you should go!

More information here.

New work!

2009-05-14T15:48:00.004-04:00

I recently met up with Kyle Fischer, fellow artist, printmaker, and former Utrecht employee, and was inspired by his beautiful and ephemeral mixed media work to return to collage and mixed-media drawing as a way to play around with and think through ideas.

Here are some small-scale collages,

and one doodle from the sketchbook.

Linkages

2009-05-13T10:06:00.002-04:00

You can now also find me on LinkedIn, a professional networking site!

ladybird wood pinch

2009-05-12T15:31:00.004-04:00

Be absorbed in sweet memories then you will be a part of the nature. You can feel comfortable from the natural materials. The nature gives you relaxation and composure. Stay in the nature.

At least, that is what the label on these adorable clothespins says. Flown in fresh from Singapore courtesy of Dave.

A free resource for artists

2009-05-09T15:18:00.003-04:00

Last weekend, I attended a "Workshop for the Working Artist" at Fe Gallery in Lawrenceville. One of the panelists was Susan Blackman, the Director of Arts Programs for the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council, an arts organization in Allegheny County that does everything from handle ProArts ticket sales to working with artists to write grants and get funding for public projects.

Ms. Blackman told us about a free web service of the GPAC, the Pittsburgh Artist Registry. It's basically an online directory where hundreds of local artists of every kind have uploaded resumes, contact information, statements, and portfolios of their work. It's completely free, and a pretty handy networking tool, so I decided I would go ahead and make one for myself.

new plate

2009-04-30T19:46:00.004-04:00

Recently finished this engraving/drypoint, based on a taxidermy specimen of a Carolina Wren I saw in Toronto at the Royal Ontario Museum. I have since made some prints, but Dave took the working camera with him to Singapore, so no new photos until he returns.

Art All Night!

2009-04-25T14:40:00.002-04:00

Lawrenceville's Art All Night is tonight! Come participate in a huge art party with over 800 artists, free food, and events at the Red Warehouse on 35th and Smallman Streets. More information here.

chopping block

2009-04-17T11:28:00.005-04:00

On his last trip to Singapore, Dave brought me back a stone chop with my name in Roman and Chinese characters so I could sign my prints in style, à la Asian artists. Note the carving on the top and side (I was born in the Year of the Rat).

Clearly I need some more practice making an even impression before I stamp up any more of my spare echidna linocuts.

New pieces at Group A opening

2009-04-16T13:09:00.001-04:00

Pictures of my work in the Group A show, "Eye Candy," that opened last month at the Brew House's Space 101 Gallery. I printed my own engravings of bugs and used collage from beauty and fitness magazines (the first a women's beauty mag, the second a men's muscle mag) to add color and tie the pieces into the show's theme (the impact of mass media on the idea of human beauty).

A shot of Hog-noses, Knotty-horns, and Eyespots:

and the other one, Bluebottles:

The Brew House, where we had the show, is a non-profit organization in a really interesting old building that was once the home of the Duquesne Brewery. There's Space 101 Gallery, artists' studios, and a theatre, which is the home of Pittsburgh's annual Black Sheep Puppet Festival.