Burning to Make Boxes

If I had to choose one art tool I couldn't live without I would have to pick my hot glue gun.  This is the case, even though every time I use it I burn myself.  Waiting for other glues to dry is just agony once you've gotten used to the fast-drying hot glue.  I have to transport my work to the Rider University Art Gallery soon, and my work is mostly fragile, unframed, and three-dimensional.  I don't think I could have made the oversized packaging I've made this week without that glue gun.
There are very few glues that work on styrofoam, and work quickly.  I needed to build cushions into the boxes with styrofoam pieces. Most glues will melt the styrofoam. A touch of hot glue will work.  It even glues the bubblewrap to the styrofoam.

Figuring out how to make packages for my work to protect, add rigidity, stabilize various elements during transport AND be lightweight was a real challenge.  I custom built 4 boxes recently.  


The hanging paper scrolls were a problem.  In order to make the big box a little smaller, I brought the bottom of the twin scrolls up by securing the   
endknobs with wire poked right through the box bottom.  Then I "rolled" the scroll up over a paper towel holder that I first covered with glassine paper for it's neutral ph.  Two cardboard fingers can be lifted up to release the scroll from it's packaging.

The bamboo at the top of the scrolls is tied into the box with wires also, and the porcelain end caps are cushioned with form fitted styrofoam.

Pieces like the porcelain LANDSCAPE LATTICE have boxes like that, and have so far survived a number of moves.  They are stored in the stacked boxes in my storage room.

The glue gun is not without hazard.  Almost every time I use it for a project I burn myself.  I had been lucky for several days, but today I was almost finished with one of the huge boxes, when I burned not just one finger, but some fingers, on both hands! As soon as I felt a finger burning on one hand, my other hand burned, and then a fingernail.  I must have gotten a flying hot glue drip.  It's like having hot candle wax stuck on your hand. After finishing the cardboard strip, the first thing I found to "ice" with was a package of old white chocolate chips in the freezer downstairs.  Then I also found a little cold pack.  Well something about the (cellophane?) packaging on the chocolate chips makes that NOT effective for soothing burns.  I tried to hold one cold thing on my fingernail of my left hand while holding another cold pack on two fingers of my right hand.  And I am impatient.  When I should have sat and waited, I wanted to check and answer emails.  Hard to type with hands like that!  An hour or so of an on and off approach, and the pain was calmed down enough to return to my packaging project.  What oh what would I do without my trusty glue gun?

My Mother, My Shadow and Me

One of the hardest parts of creating art is deciding when to stop working on a piece.  When is it finished?  The question also comes up when a piece is damaged.  Do you throw it away, do you try to perform heroics to restore it, or do you compromise and take the hint - see where the solving of that crisis takes the piece?  A professional art restorer is going to disguise the damage and try to get the piece back into it's original "finished" form.  An artist, however, has to consider all the options when it comes to damage on their own work.
If only I could get better at "seeing" what life literally puts in front of my eyes!  A couple of days after one of my artworks fell off the wall,  I visited Dia Beacon in New York, and was very interested to see Andy Warhol's HUGE installation of paintings of a shadow, in 102 variations. 
http://www.diaart.org/exhibitions/introduction/98  I didn't even realize until just now, writing this, that seeing Warhol's shadow was a timely lesson for me: there are hundreds of ways to recreate a shadow. I only needed to decide on one - the bottom corner of my piece was smashed in the area where I had shadows from a white cloth.  I did not consciously realize this connection when I viewed the Warhol shadows, though; the lesson was absorbed completely subconsciously if at all!

(left: the undamaged bottom corner)
My large collage, "Biography of a Moth", had hung securely for months, waiting for it's exhibition in my show at the end of this month. My trusty E6000 glue, that has never failed me before, gave way, and the piece came down on a section of shadows.  I hadn't even heard it fall off the wall, and discovered it the next time I went downstairs into my studio.  It was impossible for me to ignore that the destruction occurred around the time of a particularly vehement argument with my daughter, and that the artwork has something to do with my own relationship with MY mother.  I know this in a way that is beyond reason.  I know this in my gut.  Oh oh, this is the kind of "knowing" that gets people into all kinds of trouble!  One person "knows" that their truth is THE truth even when it conflicts with someone else's truth, and they both "know it in their gut".  Therefore, I allow myself to indulge in my "gut feeling" about this artwork while simultaneously letting my big skeptic balance on my shoulder. 

Another aspect of something meaningful being in my face without me even seeing it was the title of the piece.  I had titled it "Biography of a Moth" a long, long time before I realized that that title is also short for "Biography of a Mother".  Am I going blind?  Really!  How much more obvious does my own creation have to be, for me to "get it"?  Duh!

(left: same corner, "repaired".)
I felt confident from the beginning of my damage survey that this smashed corner was something I could deal with, and that the artwork was no lost cause.  My decision was whether to entirely disguise the event or to embrace it in the repair.  I decided to add a visible rectangular layer of mat board to the front surface, but to restore with colored pencils the shadow images that had been there originally as a photograph. I guess it was a sort of compromise.  The surface is changed where the repair is, but I retained the content of the area.  In fact, when seen in the entire piece, I like the addition of that subtle geometry to the surface there.   I also added more support to the backside of the same corner.  Probably MOST importantly, I (bravely) drilled and screwed right through the front of the artwork, to attach a more secure wood strip to the back for a better hanging solution, and then concealed the screws on the face of the artwork.

A sideview portion of "Biography of a Moth" can be seen on the right side of the announcement card for my show, "Translating Nature".  The show will be at the Rider University Art Gallery, on the 2nd floor of the Bart Luedeke Center, Westminster College of the Arts at Rider University, 2083 Lawrenceville Rd., Lawrenceville, New Jersey, and it opens September 30th, 5-7pm. There is an artist's talk scheduled for October 7th, 7pm. The exhibition runs through October 30th.  My mother, my shadow and myself will all be in some form of attendance.

"It's Cooler In The Mornings" and Other Annoying Advice

I'm sitting in my comfortably air-conditioned house writing my blog about my life as an artist instead of working in the uncomfortably hot studio on this sweltering day in July.  In fact, it's been a month of sweltering days.  I know this in a way I wouldn't have known it other summers, had they been this hot, because THIS month I rented a friend's non-air-conditioned studio (top photo) while she is away.  I needed some extra space to work on some large projects, and it seemed like a good idea.  It was a good idea in that I did get some crucial things accomplished.  I was able to set up and photograph several pieces against the big, white wall.  I was also able to build several sculpture bases.

 My home studio has daylight fluorescent bulbs, which give off a great light, as you can see in the photo above.  It also has a baseboard heater running the length of the longest wall, and wood trimmed baseboards on the others.  The baseboards became a big issue when I tried to get clean photographs of the art.  Also, my home studio only has a 7' dropped ceiling, which also detracts from the taller work.  Some of my new pieces are so tall I couldn't avoid getting those ceiling tiles in the photos.  Ugh.  At this point, I do not have Photoshop and have been editing everything with iPhoto.  I was able to use my vacationing friend's excellent selection of power tools to cut plywood, and use her tabletop sawhorses to glue and nail the sculpture pedestals together. I didn't have to worry about the screaming saw terrifying my noise-sensitive dog into sitting on my feet, either.  It is very difficult to accomplish tasks if a dog is trying to sit on your feet.  Any fantasies I'd had about bringing him to that studio were quickly quelled when I realized how miserable we'd both be there together.

I hate it when people say, which they did, "it's cooler in the mornings, so if you get up and go in early you'll be better off".  Of COURSE it's cooler in the mornings, but I stay up late, often past midnight, doing the computer work and writing part of being an artist, and I'm not like my Uncle Ray, who only needed 3 hours of sleep per night thus living the equivalent of two normal people's lives.  I have a family to be part of and we try to approximate our schedules so we see something of each other.  So.  I'd get up at around 8:00, shower because I must, though it makes no sense when I'm going into a steam bath, check my emails to make sure there were no time-sensitive issues to deal with, eat breakfast so I wouldn't have to stop working and take a break until a little snack lunch I'd bring, perhaps put a load of laundry in, pack the car with that day's project materials, and inevitably finish the 1/2 hour drive to the studio around 10 or 11am.  Then I'd park my car in the glaring sun and proceed to drag my supplies to the studio building, through another artist's studio, and into mine.  Back to the car, and a repeat or two.

By the time I set up the fans and got to work I'd be dripping.  One day I realized I should have sweatbands for my head because I was literally dripping onto my work.  If I didn't have deadlines I wouldn't have been able to get myself to go in there and do the projects.  Even so, I wasn't able to get myself in there many times for two days in a row.  I seem to need an entire day to recover from such heat immersion.  Luckily, there were things I needed to do in my home studio, too, so I could remain productive with an excuse.  My home studio isn't directly air conditioned, but some of the house a/c sinks downstairs.

Other people suggested that I go in the evenings, "when it cools down".  Unfortunately, I am not an evening person when it comes to physical work.  Working at night would also put me into the visiting times for the nocturnal creatures who clearly visit.  Not that the mice didn't visit during the day, but I know they are even more lively at night.  After the landlord sprayed some rodent deterrent into the ceiling, the daytime screeching from raccoons or rats or squirrels partying up there temporarily stopped.  

I know there are lots of people who have to work outside in searing weather:  road construction crews, farmers (okay, I know they DO get up early), and roofers, to mention a few.  I've thought about the slaves who had to pick cotton in the mean sun for hours every day, with no fans.  I realize that I am soft.  I've had it easy.  I haven't suffered from the heat like this since I was a child.  Then, my father used to hang wet sheets in front of the windows, and blow a fan through them, claiming he could feel a difference.  I never thought it helped.  In fact, it seems that would have only added to the humidity, thus making the air even muggier! There are no effective home remedies for being overheated except, perhaps, wrapping oneself with iced towels.  I didn't try that since it would have added to the dripping that was already going on.

These days anyone who reads or listens to the news at all hears lots of talk about climate change and global warming.  Yet it is mostly all talk and no action.  My oasis of cool air may soon be only a memory as we run out of natural resources that power it.  This is happening quickly.  This summer I have some choice on whether to be inside where it is comfortable or inside where it is hellish.  According to some scientists who study all of this, this choice may disappear in my lifetime.  Humans are poisoning and over-fishing, over-farming, over-drilling, over-building, and over-populating our planet, and we may be bringing forth our own demise.  Arriving to work in the mornings or in the evenings when it is cooler, will not solve that.

My month-long studio rental is almost over, and what I've accomplished there in addition to the few projects I already mentioned is a renewed appreciation for the comforts I have at home.  I'm not taking my a/c, my food, my water, or my air for-granted.  I'm not taking our earth for-granted.  And, certainly, I'm not taking my being able to make art in the midst of serious environmental collapse for-granted.  Making art is a luxury that I hope to enjoy for many years yet. I can do it if I'm comfortable enough.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

Lackluster Smoking

The last post I wrote was about my participation in "smoking" unglazed ceramic pieces to gain tonal variations without color. When I arrived at the ceramics studio to pick up my smoked tile some of the pieces by other people had already been collected.  Here is a photograph of the small collection that  was left for me to see:

I was rather disappointed in the results.  The smoke color did not play up the textures on the clay or in any way enhance the forms.  Everything looked pretty much just dirty.  Previously, I had painted some high fired tiles with watercolor, and the watercolor sank nicely into the recesses and rolled off the relief surfaces, enhancing what I had built.  This was not the way the smoke acted.  It indiscriminately singed across the piece in a muddy wash. Truly, I did not spend a long time making my tile.  I had to get something done in time to be ready for the smoke fire, and it's probably not my best work.  I had hoped for a more dramatic effect, however.
 I have seen smoked sculptures that were beautiful. I'm sure there are a few tricks to getting this kind of finish to work for the form, but I don't think anybody was very impressed with our first attempt at this process. I'd pick the watercolor effect any day.

above left: watercolor on porcelain.
below: smoke fired porcelain

Benefits of Smoking

My parents were militantly against smoking, and one of the most stressful times in our family was after I reported to them my discovery of my older, teen brother's stash of smoking supplies in a thicket in the back field.

Although I never smoked myself, I breathed in vast quantities of second hand smoke as a waitress in NYC before its restaurant smoking ban. I am currently wondering how my non-smoking daughter will deal with roommates or friends smoking at college should that be an issue during her freshman year. Now, having lived away from city air for a couple of decades, I am full of gratitude for the air that smells of honeysuckle or freshly rained on earth.  The less one is exposed to smoke, the less tolerance one has for it.  Hence my current intolerance for smoke even in forms like incense.  We changed our wood-burning fireplace to gas because the little bit of smoke it produced aggravated my otherwise mild asthma.  Nothing thrills me now like sweet, clean air.

None of this was on my mind when a ceramist colleague invited a bunch of us over to her rural house to do a "smoke firing" last Monday. I've seen the beautiful, delicate, atmospheric patterns that smoke firings can leave on ceramic pots, and was eager to see how it was done.

A pit for the firing was already in place:  a 2 ft. X 4 ft. X maybe 2 ft. deep, dug out dirt hole lined with piled up bricks.  We each draped our previously bisque-fired (low-kiln-fired) but unglazed ceramic works in banana peels, copper wire, bamboo leaves, or whatever we could think of that might leave some organic deposit of hue or pattern on the white clay.  Then we wrapped each collage in newspaper and set it on a bed of sawdust that had been sprinkled into the bottom of the pit.

All the pieces were "loaded" into the pit, and completely buried in sawdust.  Then we laid metal grates across the top of the pit.  It was damp that evening, so the newspaper torches didn't want to light.  It took quite a few starter nuggets planted into the sawdust to finally catch fire.

Once it looked like the fire would continue, we placed ceramic tiles over grates to make a roof, so the pit would only smoulder, and not blaze.  Then we went in to have dinner.

About 45 minutes later we went out to check on our smoking pit, and sure enough, a good stream of smoke was rising up into the treetops, and no flames were leaping out.  All looked as it should.  However, I had to keep away from the direction of the breezes, because I then realized that, "DUH, a smoke firing was going to make smoke that I wouldn't like to breathe"!  As exciting as this was, I wasn't ever going to want to do it myself, since that would entail being in the midst of the smoke at least when getting the pit started.

 In a couple of days we will all get our smoke-fired pieces back from the pit, and everyone is looking forward to seeing what happened in there.  Did any of the organic matter affect the results?  I only had one tile to contribute, but am really curious about how it will look. 

I am glad I wasn't the one doing the most attempted lightings, and I hope the benefits of the smoking will be worth it to whoever breathed in the most smoke during the process.   

Space, Time and Being Here

One can certainly look at space and time in a cosmic sense, which is always endlessly fascinating.  Catherine Weser, an artist/philosopher friend of mine recently proposed this quote on the topic:

"When we identify ourselves in time, we create more separation.  The place of 'oneness' is timeless.  It seems the intellect can fathom an existence without spatial dimension much more readily than without temporal dimension."

I kind of "get" that.  I read Ram Dass' book, REMEMBER BE HERE NOW years ago.  (Book)  I set myself to think about this more, and then got derailed into practical interpretations of "space and time" instead.  Once again, space and time became decidedly UNcosmic!  In the spirit of "going with the flow", I decided to write this post about space and time in the personal, mundane sense that I know so well in my art studio.  I can't insert images of my working space here, because it is so full of works for my upcoming show which haven't been exhibited or published yet.  I am adding some vignettes of supplies though. 

above: a studio supply cabinet

My studio is a reasonable size and working space, even huge compared to some studios of friends, but a staircase that chops it in half leaves it functioning like two rooms instead of the one open space I dream of.  Nevertheless, one of my installations for a new piece needs a long, long wall.  My longest studio wall has visual interruptions of an ugly baseboard heater, a 7.5' ceiling, and a large worktable.  I can't take a complete photo of the piece, let alone do a complete set up of it.  I've tried draping the wall, floor, and heater in gray felt for previous photo shoots of other floor standing sculptures, with less than stunning results.  Now, with a couple of newly created floor sculptures, I've created an obstacle course to and from the adjoining garage.  It's hazardous walking, to put it mildly.

 Above:  studio storage room

To solve at least the photography part of my problem, I'm subletting the studio of a friend who is going to be away for part of the summer.  Even if I do nothing more than re-shoot some pieces and build and paint a pedestal or two, it will help me to breathe.  The hardest part will be moving everything there, back home, and then again to the gallery (Rider University Art Gallery in Lawrenceville, NJ) several weeks later for the show.  I'm already exhausted in anticipation.

I actually like having a studio at home, and it will be a big adjustment working 1/2 hour drive away.  I'm in the habit of running downstairs for an hour or two or three here and there...and it's nice that the dog can enjoy the yard while I work at home.  There is no commuting time, so I "save" an hour or more a day.  That will all change in the month ahead.  My home studio has a sink, the most shallow sink ever, but a luxury nonetheless.  The floor is covered in outdated but rather neutral vinyl tiles, on the battered side.  This is a good thing, because I don't have to worry about messing up the floor and ruining it, but bad in that the pattern is still screamingly there in photos.

Below:  studio floor

Because I work in many different media I have lots of different kinds of supplies, from all kinds of paints and canvases to ceramic glazes and clay tools, linoleum sheets and printing inks, lots of papers, etc.  

Below:  studio brushes

Below:  some of the studio pencils

Below:  studio toaster oven (with in-progress "wall flowers")

"Why", you might ask, "does she need a studio toaster oven?"  Well, there are some thermo-hardening ceramic glazes that I bake in that, usually on top of conventional kiln-fired glazes or stains, to tweak the colors. 

All of the art supplies take up space.  Lots of space.  The finished artworks take up lots of space, too.  So space is always on my mind when I'm working.  Time, however, sometimes stands nearly still in the studio when things are rolling along beautifully.  "...The place of 'oneness' is timeless...."  All artists love that sense of '"oneness" like an addiction.  Most days I do have to keep my eye on the clock in order to accomplish my non-art duties.  It is a very rare treat when I can ignore time galloping along and work seemingly outside of its constraints.  My muse is just cooking hot lately though, and every time I plan to clean up my studio a bit, she opens the floodgates and I end up starting another new piece.  And every artist knows, when your muse is with you you'd better go along for the ride or else she may just up and disappear.  That just wouldn't be worth it in a practical OR cosmic sense!  It's as if there is a muse-artist contract that stipulates, "BE...HERE...NOW".

The Fraternal Twins Devastation and Creation

This year on the East Coast the month of March was not only a lion, but a raging, biting, rabid beast.  It was a wet, wet month.  Snow that came down in
February and March as a thick, luxurious blanket of beautiful quiet, turned insidiously destructive.  Writing about it now, only a month after the worst storm, surrounded by all sorts of trees and bulbs that are perfuming the spring air with their glorious creations, seems surreal.
 

March's lions strained so many trees, already soggy from a snow saturated ground, that many giants fell right over.  Morning's daylight revealed neighborhood devastation.  Beautiful, sky high pine trees had fallen right over, shocking people with their shallow, shallow roots exposed.
Within days of each other torrential rains further weakened the grip of tree roots.  Across the street one huge tree fell across the neighbor's driveway, just missing the house, and right nextdoor another fell- luckily downhill, away from the house it would have smashed.  Power lines were down and roads flooded.  It was a fugue of devastation.  Even sunny days later as I walked near the woods there was the crash of a tree giving in to gravity's pull. Our curbs are still piled with cut up trunks and branches in front of nearly every home.  Some yards are still littered with storm debris.  Yesterday, April 16th, the phone rang with an automated message that our town has been officially declared a "disaster area" with instructions on where to go to file for some help.

And yet today the bulbs bloom, the empty window boxes beckon, the dogwood trees are dressed to the hilt, and birds fly busily gathering nesting material. They must be having an easy time finding broken twigs this year! Temperatures have been in the 80's for days in a row. As I pulled piles of loose downy fluff off the panting dog I wondered if any of those birds would choose to line their nests with that soft insulator.  It could make a nest as quiet as the big snow that hushed us through the raging white lion.  That beast could not even postpone spring's insistence on creating. If there is a lesson to be learned it seems it would be:  Creation follows its sibling Devastation, every time.
  

RIVER DRAWING, ©JoyKREVES '10, ink, graphite and watercolor on newsprint.

This is an old theme, but it recurs regularly with variations across the world as it does in my art-making.  Like the birds in search of nesting materials, I have loaded my car with a few especially lichen and moss covered branches that have potential to be sculpture materials. I wouldn't be able to create art from them if Devastation hadn't played with them first.

In another variation of the twin's collaborations a work of art often begins auspiciously, then turns problematic.  I often find that attempts to cure or "fix" the problems are dead ends. Instead, if I either transform or even highlight them they become an integral, rich part of the piece.  There is a Japanese ceramic technique of highlighting cracks in ceramic bowls with gold.  The flaws become the beauty, the character, increasing the value of the piece.  This is a lesson art can teach everyone who creates.  Mother Earth had fraternal twins and named them Devastation and Creation.  We must all negotiate with both of them to succeed in life and in art.