Well I finally actually had a serious conversation about my art here with one of the painting profs. He had some interesting things to say, most notably that most students he sees view art as being illustrative, but when he looks at my stuff he sees the opposite he sees illustration being viewed as art. He says those other people need to look at classical art history and looking more externally, but he thought in my case I need to be looking at modern art and much more internally. These were some of the artists he recomended that I look at. The top two are by Klee, the other two are by Guston.

Patron Saint of Printing Presses

St. Brigid of Ireland is the patron saint of printing presses, I am not quite sure why, it really didn't seem to fit into her story at all.

Snowing Again

We had another snow day today, it was snowing when I got up this morning at 8:00 am, and it is still going strong, very low visibility.

City Lights

Well last week was the day of the semester trip to New York, and my first time in NYC. I went off with my friend Amy (MFA ceramics) we ran through the Met, through the Natural History Museum. From there we took the subway to Greenwhich Village to meet up with her Aunt Ginie, we had a very good dinner at a small little restaurant. Then we took a taxi through rush hour traffic to only just barely make the bus back.

While at the Met we saw the Horse Fair by Rosa Bonheur, which was kind of exciting as we had just discussed that painting in history. Evidently Bonheur dressed like a man, and in fact had to have a special liscence to be a transvestite issued to her. Currently there is a theory out that her paintings were more than just horses, and that the unbearded youth in her paintings were in fact her (ie the figure that is almost dead center and is looking out at you)

Let it Snow, let it snow, let it snow

Piranesi

I have this sinking suspision that no one will show up

10 of Hearts

Ten of Hearts this one reminds me of circuses, but at any rate I tried taping some lace into my paper stencil to see if it would work to give a textural soft ground effect. I got some pretty good results with it.

Thoughts

Today Dr. Partridge had me going through the questionaires/surveys from a guest lecture that she had sponsored. At first I was rather amused to find a survey from one of the Marywood proffs that read "It actually felt like a university for a day." I shared this with another MFA and we got a laugh out of it, but as the day progressed I started to become more and more bothered by this. After all the faculty are kind of like the DNA of the university, they are the ones who determine the character of the university and the students success is a direct mirror of the proff's abilities. This proffs statement raised the question that since this individual is such an integral part of the university then why aren't they doing something about it? Then I started to think about some of my own passive aggressive behavior, negativity, and about my work. Some of these thoughts centered back to the fact that the MFA's outside of their semester reviews do not really have group critiques. One of the adjunct profs had assigned us the task of trying to organize our own critique where we set the parameters last semester. The idea was met with tremendous negativity by a few people, it ended up lasting for six hours and was really a bit of a dud as far as critiques go, but rather than looking at what went wrong and learning and trying it again, the idea was dropped and ridiculed. Well I started thinking about something the Hoff had told me after looking at my work, that I'm a risk taker. I started thinking about that and I'm thinking about trying to set up another open critique thing.

Well some anonymous commentator suggested that I look at the work of Demetri Bolaski. This is not him, in the course of the search I came accross this guy, Sergey Tyukanov, and I quite liked his stuff.

Resolution and Compromise

My weekly review with the Hoff went quite well today, he was happy with the king of clubs. And I was also able to present him with a compromise on a difference of opinion between us. Next semester I had wanted to start work on a very large multiplate dealing with some of the metaphors involved with Genesis. He had some serious issues about the size and the amount of time such a project would take. At anyrate I stumbled across the work of Louis-Marin Bonnet in Colorful Impressions: The Printmaking Revolution in 18th Century France. Marin was so proud of the color that he had achieved that he also made prints of each stage in printing, and gave a little bit of a written account for what he did for each print. As can be seen he did this print using only a la poupe techniques, and only one plate. The Hoff finds this method more acceptable, and he seemed pretty interested when I showed him the book.

Cards

These are two of my silk screened cards. Peter wasn't overly crazy about the three of hearts, for technical printing reasons. My registration is a bit off in the king of clubs I don't know how acceptable that is to the rest of the world. The hearts is a four color registration print, and the king is a six color registration. Both were done using a combination of paper and photo stencils

Joel! You didn't show us the right way to handle a dust box!

"With the shelf out and the flap closed, the resin is shaken into suspension by swinging the whole box over one's head from side to side and then bringing the box down to the floor with a slight thump to prevent any granules from clinging to the sides. This action looks to the bystander like a herculean task...Besides, it is good exercise-which even artists need."
B.F. Morrow
The Art of Aquatint

I dare say my temper is improving here

So I'm working on my silk screen stencils for my cards, and decided that some of my light weight chine cole paper could possible give an interesting effect in a paper stencil. So I go to my clearly labeled with my name drawer in the printshop expecting to be greeted by a bursting abundance of specialty paper, only to find my paper gone and nowhere to be seen in the room, in the grad studio, or even in the garbage cans, and somebody else's project in there, so I promptly threw it across the room. I might add the piece consisted of a masonite board with many half dollars glued on it, so there was a rather pretty shower of silver coins as it flew across the room. I imagine that I shall probably be hearing from the Hoff about this.

Guild Print

This is my guild print, every year the Hoff puts together a print guild, basically a big printswap that also includes a small show. This is mandatory for the MFA printmakers and also costs us $10. We pretty much have to give up the full edition, the university auctions off the extras and pockets the money. I might also add that the $10 is going to Marywood envelopes, which he can get for free, and $5 frames that he purchased years ago, and keeps reusing from show to show.

Ferric Chloride

Alright, I've been doing some research to try to find a way to refine the course bite of the ferric chloride. I may have found it. Ferric Chloride is also known as Edinburgh Etch, and research done in 1997 to try to eliminate the sediment created in the etching process also reputedly found a way to refine the quality of the etch to razorsharp exactness. And ba..ba..bum the magical mystery ingrediant is citric acid. I have yet to try it yet, but I plan on doing so shortly. The title should link up to the webpage where I found this info and much more, but if it doesn't this info can be found at: www.polymetaal.nl/beguin/mape/edinburgh_etch.htm

I think I was sleeping in History Class

Evidently I wasn't paying very much in history, this morning I caught the Planet of the Apes on the History Chanel.

Card Project

Alright, among my project is designing playing cards based off the historical views of the rulers represented by the suits. Traditionally the king of hearts was seen as being Charlemagne, the king of spades Julius Caesar, king of Clubs Alexander the Great, the king of diamonds was David, and the queen of hearts was Anne Boleyn. As you can see who the rest of the queens were has been lost to history as well as the identities of the Jacks.
I am thinking of doing Elizabeth I as queen of clubs, Boadicea as queen of spades, and Salome Alexandra as queen of diamonds. The jacks I am having a little bit more trouble with, so if anyone has any sugestions they will be welcome.

Frasconi

Frasconi is an artist that the Hoff asked me to look at. He was a woodcut artist from the early 20th cen., and is famous for his illustrations of Aesop's Fables. His work was characterized by how he worked with the grain, and he would often use selective work with wire brushes to help highlight it.

Words of Wisdom

I have just come back from a little party at one of the painting professors houses, where I heard profound words of wisdom. John and the Happy Box (he's a pupeteer) was the profound ritualistic guru type, who told us that love was the key to all, and then went on to question the situation with the 9/11 tragedy and our own national reaction. He said that instead of approaching them and saying "Why did you do this?" we came with a we're going to hate you forever and an "eye for an eye" mentality. Then the painting professor followed with a comment to the effect that the most important and defining moments in our lives are the moments when we let each other down. I will leave it up to you to decide, but personally John's message was the one that spoke to me. As an archaeologist, there is a reason for everything and a reaction to every action. If we are to better understand ourselves we must understand how people react to our actions and vice versa. Yes some of the most important moments are when others let us down, but inparticularly the telling moment is in how we react to them.