[.progress.report.].[coasters.]

Lately I've been spending my art time 3 ways- screen printing, collaging media for coasters, and life drawing.

Antique Newspaper Coasters were a project I came up with in response to the acquisition of a large collection of antique newspapers. I got these around 2009 when a close friend salvaged them. They were from a library in Michigan and were sent to her to be transferred into microfilm before being destroyed. I can only assume that libraries do this to eliminate the costs and lost physical space of storage.


Making 4x4 in drink coasters was a functional way I could use these newspapers images. In my opinion they also make a nice conversation pieces. I've made like 40 and am working on about 30 more. These are collaged newspaper clippings, antique photographs, and coated with a clear polymer to preserve them. 
 

Out with the old... In with the new

It's still winter here but I'm already doing some spring cleaning- I need to make space for upcoming equipment and new creations.

The printing press seems to be coming along nicely- I'd say that it should be installed in the next couple months, but as construction goes these things always seem to take longer than expected. I'm hoping to get vinyl flooring put in this weekend. This will require me to move everything in the studio, lay down the flooring, then put things back in place. As you can see from the photo below, the floor is currently just plyboard/sub-flooring- which is a pain in the ass to sweep and keep clean, and not good for accidental spills.

Two steps forward, one step backward.

Besides starting some new work, I also want to revisit some older works to basically put them to rest. I have so many different old resources, stencils, supplies, that i need to sort though and file away. I think last weekend completed this process- I'm done with old stencils! YAY! I've found stencils to be such a pain in the ass to work with- there's too much time required cutting plastic, too much effort getting them to line up, and too much time waiting for paint to cure. And when it's all said and done- I really don't like how spray paint stencils require 'bridges' to hold the stencil together- for example, you can see the bridges in the gentleman's blue coat, the lady on the left has some in the black shadow, and my Woodrow Wilson stencil has one across his cheek. I've never found a good way to deal with the physical limitations of stencil making.

I'm SO glad my screen printing gear has arrived- I think screen printing will be a better fit for me- especially since I can get more detail out of it and print shirts too.

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This is my first attempt at a stencil, It's roughly 20x30 and 3 layers- light grey, dark grey, and black. I cut this stencil in 2008 and haven't seriously revisited it since. I found the image from one of the antique photo albums I own. This is sprayed on a piece of sheet metal I'd been meaning to use for something- I figured this would be a great canvas to lay this stencil to rest- (it took me like 15+ hours to cut all of the stencils out).

This piece was in a local art show in Cedar Rapids called 'Harvester' in 2008.

I still feel like I'm not doing enough creating. Part of my problem is that I'm interested in so many different mediums that I feel overwhelmed- should I do some digital art? collage? screen printing? drawing? oil painting? cleaning my studio? Another problem is that it's still winter here in good ol' Iowa, so the days are still very short; these short days really make me want to sleep and lay around more than I should. And as always things come up- for example, one of my hard drives storing my photos is starting to give me some problems.

Other things are coming along- I've got my first screen exposed and should be doing more screen printing in the coming weeks- more to come.

Happy New Year- a look back before looking forward

Generally I don't believe in New Years resolutions but I do think the New Year is a good time to reflect  and contemplate how to achieve our goals during the next year. Basically I see this as a time it to bookmark our lives and think about what we are achieving, or not achieving, and how we would like to get where we want to be.

This past year has been incredibly challenging for me- I've gone through a ton of difficult trials and struggled to investigate exactly who I am and who I want to be. I've had the opportunity to reconsider what I find important and what i need to expel from my life. This is the first year of my life I've begun to ask deep questions about who I fundamentally am and who i strive to be.

One answer to this question is that I see myself as a creative person. If I'm not creating things I feel like I'm wasting my time. Creativity is deeply important to me. I have to be working on something otherwise I feel a deep sense of guilt and anxiety over loosing time; i've felt this guilt for the past 3 or 4 years. I feel like if I'm not making something that I don't have anything to show for my time.

When I graduated from college my creative outlet slowly receded into the doldrums of work and I looked for excuses to not try. I got caught up and preoccupied with things that really weren't important to the exact essence of who I am, and I found ways to perpetuate this delusion. Looking back I realize I was afraid of failure; if I didn't try I wouldn't fail- "I can't make art, I don't have a studio," or "The time is not right, I feel burnt out." All of these excuses allowed me to be defeated before trying anything.

I've long wanted to be creating art regularly... and I finally have an art studio I can feel comfortable in. I also finally realize that I can't keep wasting time. Everything is coming together nicely, I have a studio, I have ideas, supplies, and time. It's strange to think about all of my inaction as being necessary to my feeling a sense of action.

So, despite not wanting to make a new years resolution, I'm going to make a new life's resolution: I'm going to start working and stop making excuses.

......s...without further adieu

initially I intended for these to be grey and black but liked the idea of satirizing, or at least imitating Shepard Fairey's Obama 'Hope' poster.

I sprayed the stencil onto an antique newspaper from Ironwood Michigan. 

I apologize for the low res images, last minute I snapped a few shots on my cellphone. After I get a cache of work backlogged I'll take some high resolution professional slides and add these to their respective gallery.