poorworm

From Feb.28th, Julie Alpert, Andy Arkley and Chair.

Julie - I Love Your Hair

Julie, Andy, Wall and Stripes

Yellow Chair, House and Hose

Artist Lecture: Kiki Smith at Kane Hall, University of Washington, March 4th, 2010

Trying to find parking before a lecture can be torturous. My ticket was in will-call, so my friends dropped me off. Fortune would have it, that since my name falls in N-Z, I could head past several people, have my name checked, get a hand stamp and enter with all the ticket holders, 5th row, near the podium, not bad. My friends showed up and I ran to the bathroom. And who is peeing in the stall next to me, none other than Kiki Smith. I recognized her voice from videos. Her voice is very much her voice. So while washing hands, I asked, “Do you get nervous before these things?” She answered personably, “Oh these talks are fine, it’s just that they can go shitty or really great.”

It was a full auditorium, Liz Brown, Chief Curator of the Henry Art Gallery at the UW made a few thank-yous and gave the briefest introduction to the artist, who then took the podium. It were as though she was talking with us in the kitchen. She talked of being a print maker and how it can get a bad rap in the art world, about the hierarchy of mediums, and the accessibility today of the image, and its reproducibility. She talked about growing up with her father, the sculptor Tony Smith, and made statements like, “life wasn’t worth living if you didn’t make art.” and that inevitably, “it can be inherently dissatisfying, that’s why we keep going back to it.” She recommended that we pay attention, that artists can revitalize their surroundings, and see things in new ways. She said, “Creativity is given to you freely,” and later she joked, “but not all day, every day.” She suggested that we can have quiet spaces in our lives where we open up and listen.

She discussed examining meaning, turning things on all their sides, like in Cubism, ideas can exist simultaneously, they can be wholistic and conflicted. It was liberating to listen, and reassuring to trust one’s own process and just make. Probably what had the deepest impact was her sharing about being a maker, using her hands, drawing, tearing, twisting, cutting paper, making marks. That that is something we need to do. I was reminded of that tonight.

In the end her prediction at the sink was the latter of the two for me. Someone asked her, “do you always know the meaning of what you are working on while working?” She responded, “No, in the unknown we get to blossom, so blossom away.”

The City Arts Blog will now be hosting my Studio Visits on it’s blog. I will still post a link here though. Read about Warren and see pictures of his space and process at the CAB.

Inside Warren Dykeman's Studio

These pics are from the show Off the Map, going on right now at the Kirkland Art Center. In this piece artist Scott Bailey uses a painting, video and sculpture to play with space, the viewer and potential participants. See Cable Griffith, Exhibitions Director at KAC and me, in our own version of our projections on the sculpture. If you haven’t see the show you have to imagine a video camera live filming of a painting that is then projected in  a separate space onto the sculpture of a mountain. It’s a very intriguing show curated by Jill Hardy who is a student in the University of Washington’s Museology Graduate Program.

So excited and nervous as all get out. Sunday night and Monday night, feb 21 & 22, performing my short piece, “My Life in Pictures.”

I saw this on my walk today. Stuck in a crevasse between two blocks of sidewalk. Had lunch with a friend and then looked at local art galleries. Amazing work in several spaces, some good chatting with art people. But I really loved this little pepper. The color and shape, the granular concrete of the sidewalk. It is working for me. Returned from the latest residency in Boston almost two weeks ago, still processing, getting ready for an audition of a live performance piece. Life is creative…

Here’s a couple of the latest Antler Pictures…from the end of 2009 and beginning of 2010.

A Glimpse of the Acorn

I Can Hear Your Poetry

I visited Whiting Tennis and his studio on Sat Nov 21^st, 2009. He has a wonderful home in the Ballard/Crown Hill area of Seattle. His décor is sparse and kitsch and the wood paneling suits it all. Just going through the foyer, the kitchen and then into the studio there seemed to be orbits of wonder circling Whiting Tennis’s space. While his home is active with wonderful items to look at, the studio is stunningly filled with drawings, objects, sculptures, old signs and crazed bits of wood. Whiting showed me several parts of projects and I became mesmerized at his focus and ability to translate his doodles into 3-dimensional visions. We talked about art making and art viewing and how sometimes when you see work that is really good, that touches you inside and sticks, you just have to go back to your studio and create. Seeing a Philip Guston exhibit in New York at The Metropolitan Museum of Art,  he couldn’t make it through the entire show the first time because he was compelled to return to his studio and work. Eventually he did return to see the show in its entirety. In a way that’s how I feel about Whiting’s work. He reminds me of the wonders of using your hands in art, of actually making stuff and getting dirty. Being an on again off again musician too, I have to admit his music does something similar for me. I saw him play this past Thursday night at Vermillion, and was reminded of the same thing. Whether it’s his visual art or music, Whiting’s work inspires me to get in my studio or pick up my guitar and play. As I was leaving I noted the photo of Laura Palmer on the mantel; all the more revelatory upon the interesting planet of Whiting Tennis.

Whiting Tennis shows work with Greg Kucera Gallery in Seattle and Derek Eller in New York.

to see more studio images, check the side bar on the right.

This was a great interactive installation! With help in making the set from Cable Griffith and Jess Marie we made a large painting of a rendition of George Suerat’s La Grand Jatte, then using Tungsten lighting and added props people were invited to participate in the set. Very fun evening at the Kirkland Arts Center’s Redux Annual Auction. Thanks also to Amy-Ellen F. Trefsger for her assistance, Jason Hirata and Sol Hashemi for helping with some lighting issues, and Chris Weber for helping with lighting and being such a fabulous model. To see all the pictures click here: KAC Flickr page.

Yesterday I received in the mail a large box of family photos. I didn’t know it was coming, so what a grand surprise to hear a thud on my porch and open this box filled with flat lives. Photographs are so interesting…as Barthes states, “In this glum desert, suddenly a specific photograph reaches me; it animates me, and I animate it. So that is how I must name the attraction which makes it exist: an animation. The photograph itself is in no way animated (I do not believe in “lifelike” photographs), but it animates me: this is what creates every adventure.” from Camera Lucida pg. 20

here’s some of the Pirate Booty:

Gold!!!

Pretty sure my grandmother wrote this on the back

Share the Fun (old negatives too!!!)