The New Deal

Okay folks, I’ve been rethinking—or maybe thinking through for the first time—my approach to this blog. I’ve come up with what I hope is a way to post on a regular basis while at the same time not spending too much time on any one post (unless the urge strikes me, say). So you’ll know what to expect, I plan on posting on one thing each day (probably no more than one or two photos each day), Monday through Friday. There will be exceptions, but for the most part, look for things to break down like this:

Mondays—Every Monday I'll feature an artist of the week.

Tuesdays—Tuesdays I'll post photos from some art that we have in our house by a particular artist and provide whatever links might be appropriate.

Wednesdays—Wednesday will be "Art in Athens" day, when I'll feature an Athens artist or talk about something art-related happening around town.

Thursdays—A featured art gallery or blog of the week.

Fridays—I’ll post some piece of art (a painting or drawing) that I have done. It should pretty much go without saying that I’m not particularly happy with any of this stuff, and it's all basically old news. Quite a bit of it will probably be unfinished. I haven't painted anything in probably close to a year. Lately I've been working on embroidered stuff like the R.E.M. piece I posted earlier, so, most likely, any new works that I post will be of the embroidered variety, and I'll post those as I finish them, regardless of what day it is. Ditto for anything extra amazing I happen to stumble onto on the internets.

So, since tomorrow is Friday, here's an unfinished piece of art, as promised:

This, assuming I ever finish it, will actually, technically, be two pieces, each on 12 inch by 12 inch wood panels. It's part of one of those lots-of-small-pieces-that-add-up-to-a-much-bigger-piece thingies. The dude in the painting is my dad, and I did him in oil (the rest of the painting is acrylic). To point out the probably obvious, the line you see running down the painting is where the two separate pieces of wood "fit" together, and the horizontal, blackish bar at the top is just a shadow from the easel that the painting is sitting on. I did the painting of my dad assuming that it would be the under painting--I was going to try to "paint like the old masters" or whatever--but now, who knows.

All's well that ends...well,...

Perhaps related to my horror vacui fixation, but more certainly inspired by my childhood appreciation of the work of M.C. Escher, is my sometimes--or at least once upon a time--fascination with recursive loops. Here's an example from a (really old) piece I was working on (but, characteristically, never finished) that Hillary wouldn't let me throw away.

The image to the right is a detail of a section within the above work that also contains an image of the (completed version of the) above work and, therefore, contains itself.

Deep, huh? Well, Andrew Lipson gets it. (The clever lego rendition of Escher's Relativity is his by the way. Read more about it here.)

Here's another unfished painting, this time of Hillary, propping up Hillary, propping up...well nothing:

It all sort of reminds me (what doesn't?) of a John Barth story:

Anyway, this is all a really long, pretentious introduction to a dude whose work I really like. His name is Luke Ramsey, and his work is kind of like Keith Haring meets M.C. Escher (but so much more than that; his work is sui generis). In fact, I'm totally generalizing with the Escher comparison, but I can't help but think of Escher's Metamorphoses whenever I look at this:

Hillary and I are fortunate enough to own a few drawings by Luke. Here are some unjust reproductions of some of them along with quotes about them from the letter he sent us:

"Flying High" is about humans not needing wings to fly--we can fly high with happiness"

"Super Puff"

"Boo-yah"
Luke says "'Super Puff' and 'Boo-yah' means whatever you want them to be."

Go here to see some amazing installation views.

Nothing to Luz

Haven't felt much like posting lately since I've been sick, but until I can manage more, check out one of my favorite online galleries, La Luz de Jesus. They consistently have some of the coolest shows I've seen, and it's a great place to look for art if you are in the market and can afford it. In the past they've featured works and/or shows by Mark Ryden, The Clayton Brothers, Dave Cooper, Jeff Soto, Gary Baseman, Gary Taxali, and a host of other talented folks. Below are some of the pieces in their current group show, "Everything but the Kitschen Sync."

"Breath" by Paul Nagel

"The Eyes Have It" by Ian Strawn

"The Long Cut" by Mark Bodnar

"Can't See It, Ain't There" by Marie Sena

Tweels So Good

Whoa. Tweels:

These are old news, apparently, but my mind is officially blown.

Micturition, not micturation

Anybody else watch the This American Life t.v. show? At the beginning, a girl called Heather tells a story about peeing on a school bus when she was a kid. I thought there was a clip here, but apparently it's been removed. But you can hear the audio from when she was on the radio program here, and there's a recap of the first episode here. Anyway. "I totally know this story!" is what I said to Hillary the second "Heather" started it, but I've never heard episode 250 of the radio show. No, the story I know, or at least as I remember it, is somewhat different, and I incorporated it into a short story I was working on a long time ago; here's the pertinent bit from my story, "Over the River and Through the Woods":

Love: “Anyway, wherever it was it was kind of a long bus ride and in the middle of it Sarah really, really--I mean really--had to pee, but they couldn't stop and she kept on about it so long that finally they had to do something, so Sharon--she was the counselor that was there, y’all know her, she helps with the daycare? At church? Well, Sharon came up with this idea that they would give Sarah a bottle …”
Adam: “a bottle?”
Love: “I know! And they took up a collection of coats and stuff and some of the girls there kind of huddled around her with the coats while she…peed. And while she was doing it they started going up hill and everybody noticed this little trickle came rolling down the aisle in the bus…”

This is a story I've known since childhood that supposedly happened to a girl they went to school with. So, did they go to school with this "Heather?" Is it an urban legend? Has anyone else heard this before? Are you out there Heather? Next time I see my cousins I will ask some questions and hopefully get to the bottom of this.

L-I-N-K

I've added a lot of links to the sidebar, so today I'll mostly be talking about that. First though, I'll talk a little bit about this/these piece(s). I'm not sure where the impulse in me comes from, but a lot of the work that I do is somewhat...modular?
Often, one larger work that consists of smaller works that "link" together, if you will. If I were particularly bored, or had the time and energy to devote to the task, I'd probably try to visually connect every painting/drawing/whatever I've ever done to each other to create some sort of conceptually cohesive uber-"painting."
I've always been drawn to that sort of idea (spiritus mundi, the Interweb, Voltron) for some reason, but I'd have to do a bit of ruminating about where that might come from. It's such a strong impulse that I'm tempted to say I'm emulating some great work of art that's captivated me since childhood, but off the top of my head no one thing leaps to mind. What does come to mind is the work one of my favorite authors, John Barth, whose seventh novel (for example, though I haven't read it) is called Letters: A Novel; Letters (which has seven L-E-T-T-E-R-S, by the way) is told through a series of letters (what else?) written amongst seven characters, six of which, if memory serves, are primary characters from his six previous books.
If I'm anything, it's definitely a Barthian post-modernist. When I asked Hillary where she thought it all came from or what other examples she could think of this tendency of mine, this leaning towards larger works that are the culmination of distinct yet connected parts, she offered that I probably prefer the medium of television to film. She also, rather pithily I might add, brought up the notion of horror vacui, which I think cut a little too close to the bone. I think she really nailed it, though I'm a bit concerned by this quote: "Many examples of horror vacui in art come from...the mentally unstable and inmates of psychiatric hospitals."

Anyway, back to the links in the sidebar (sorry for the long post). You'll notice three categories so far, Frequent Reads, Artists, and Art Blogs. In the coming days I'll add a Galleries section with links to my favorite places to look at and purchase art. I tried my best to distinguish between "Art Blogs," which have a lot to do with art, but may also contain journal-type entries and "Artists," who feature their own work and generally do a better job than I of staying on the subject of art, but the lines are often blurry, so if you feel you've been wrongly labeled, or don't wish to be linked at all, just drop me an email. The "Frequent Reads" are all great blogs that I read on a regular basis, and I recommend that you do the same.

The Artists and Art Blog links will continue to grow at a rapid rate probably starting tomorrow, but here's a quick rundown of the folks currently on the sidebar (who aren't named Patrick or Garth ("Extreme Craft"; more on him soon though!):

I really think of Devlin and Dogboy as kind of the inspiration behind this blog (Sorry, Devlin and Brad!). The idea was to post old art that I've done--though not as old as Devlin's--and provide links to some cool artists, which Brad is great at. They both have some great links up right now, so go check them out!

Drew and Eleanor are both extremely talented illustrators and cartoonists living in Athens (as do Devlin and Brad, by the way), and you should really just go look at their stuff and buy stuff from them because their work really speaks for itself.

Sara and Emily are also both in Athens and both have Etsy stores. Feel free also to check out the blog of Dennis Harper (another Athenian), which I'll probably discuss more at length in a future post.

Tomorrow I'll have more links and maybe some deep questions about art that I'd love feedback on. Please come back and be part of the discussion. I know the road to hell is paved with mice and men and all that but I'd really like this blog to be a place where people can come and have meaningful discussions about art and maybe get to know each other better. Thanks for reading this.

New Features

I'm still feeling my way around this blog thing, so I'm not sure what regular posts will be like, but I will try to make one post a day Monday through Fridays for...well, 'till I run out of stuff. I'll post something I've made/drawn/painted or whatever, like this painting I did (in 2005?) of my sister dressed as a cat for Halloween (c. 1993) as well as some links to stuff. Tomorrow I'll get to work on getting more links up on the sidebar. There are a ton of great artists, galleries, and blogs I want to write about, so stay tuned for those. In the meantime, let me know if there's anything related to art that you want to see or hear more about. Also, feel free to leave comments. I'd love any feedback on either my stuff or the places I link.

Now, about those new features. I've thought of two recurring features (kinda like what "Pantywatch," "OSIS," and "Hobbyhorse"are to hillary's blog) I will try to...um, feature, from time to time:

1. Art in Our House, with crummy pictures of actual art we own; will include links, when possible, to the artists and/or place(s) we bought the item(s) in question.
2. Art in Athens, where I'll spotlight artists, shows, blogs, or whatever in the 706.

Unfortunately, both of these features will probably eventually be somewhat limited due to a paucity of subject matter in both cases, but for today I'm going to combine features. Two for the price of one! Art in Athens in Our House (in Athens):

Click for larger images, of course, but these photos do no justice whatsoever to these charming pieces by Patrick Dean (They're under glass and the lighting's screwy. Sorry, Patrick!). These are easily the best art bargains in our house as we bought them for obscenely little one year at the Fluke art sale at Bizarro Wuxtry. In fact, there's a much better picture of the first piece here. If you're in Athens, you've no doubt appreciated Patrick's work in Flagpole. If not, go buy stuff from his store. Also, go watch this video from our friend and fellow dayjobber, Karate Media.

letter Never seNt

Several weeks ago I heard about a contest the Banner-Herald was having where they'd select reader submissions to use for the cover of their special section commemorating R.E.M.'s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Around the same time, I went to the Georgia Museum of Art's awesome exhibit on Mariska Karasz, who, created, amongst other things, embroidered portraits like this:


Inspired by the Karasz exhibit and my recollections of the work of Cayce Zivaglia (below), I decided to try my hand at embroidery for the ABH contest. I missed the deadline for that by a good bit, but you can view the results above. (As always, my apologies for the crappy photograph. You should just assume that everything looks better in person--yeah, do that.) I enjoyed working on it enough that i bought more thread and some actual, non-used fabric (I did the R.E.M. thing is on a pair of old pants.), and I'm currently working on another embroidery piece, which I'll post here whenever it's done. In the meantime, I'll keep posting links and pics of previous projects/paintings/whatever. Now, go see stuff by folks who know their way around an embroidery hoop a lot better than I do, Jenny Hart and Christa Maiwald.

So yeah, I have a web log now, or "blog" as the kids are calling them. Okay, here's the deal. I'm a dabbler. I dabble/have dabbled in various...I like saying dabble (yes, this is the type of quality prose you can expect at the Art on My Sleeve blog, w00t! lol QED kmfdm:)...

One of my favorite new yorker cartoons of all time is of this guy at a party saying something like "Well, I don't usually like calling myself a writer because I haven't actually written anything." Same goes for me with calling myself an artist. I've drawn and painted things from time to time but have only ever had one painting in a show (since puberty, but that's another story for another time), and I've mostly been too distracted by other pseudo-callings (in my spare time I'm also not a "writer," an "editor," a "musician," a "podcaster," an "inventor," an "academic," etc.) to focus on failing at one thing exclusively. Nevertheless, I find myself devoting more of my time to a new art project (embroidery, bitches!), and I want to post my progress here from time to time.

So, to sum up, I'll be posting my embroidery thingies here as I finish them (I expect to have the first one finished in the next couple of days) as well as any other artsy projects I have going on at the time. Meanwhile, I'll be posting some previous paintings, doodles, etc. Almost all of them are unfinished. Seriously. I'll also post links every now and then to other cool artists, galleries, and blogs. All visual art all the time. If you want to see dumb videos, participate in the latest meme, or catch up on want the latest on Brangelina, look elsewhere! (I suggest my wife's blog, antidisembowelmentarianism)

To get the ball rolling (Finally, ugh. Most posts won't be this long, I swear.), here's an unfinished painting I did of Dan Magill, the "fust baby bun at Athens Regional Hospital."

I was planning, at the time, of doing a "People of Athens" series of paintings. So far I've only done one other painting in the series: Chris Hassiotis.

This is also a part of my "People Eating Corndogs" series.

Oh, and here's the painting I mentioned earlier that was in the Lyndon House juried exhibit last year:















I'll leave you with a link to my favorite recent discovery:

The amazing fabric collages of Ai Kijima. And when I say discovery, I mean I stole it from this dude (Former Athenian, by the way. Extreme Craft is my favorite new blog discovery).