12 December 2011

birds and brains


My parents opened a gallery!


Their first exhibit is a synthesis of my deceased grandfather's beautiful wooden bird carvings and my dad's guitar sculptures (shown below, respectively).




I'm really proud of them.

29 November 2011

The Life of the Termite


Well, I done got broken up with, the Sunday before this past Sunday. Rats. Things are not very good.

An article in question: the notion of whether or not anyone actually reads this thing. I just post stuff on here to release it from my head-cage, so to speak. On occasion, it allows me to view my thoughts in a more organized manner; they adopt a linear, or at least somewhat horizontal (for the lack of a more suitable term) sense, as opposed to the translucent, but not enough so to be conducive to clarity, vertically stacked and overwhelmingly chaotic bearing I imagine them to uphold when they are shacked up in my head. So I guess it serves its purpose. Haha.

It would be nice to go somewhere.

Nnngh. Yes. I finished my shadowbox, entitled Like Grass in a Good Green Soil (inspired by a passage in the novel All Quiet on the Western Front), in time for the H x W x D show at Paradigm Gallery. The exhibit was wonderful, and I got to converse with some really nice people.

Some illustrations of mine are hanging up at Guerilla Galleries in Newark, NJ, in accordance with their Illustrious show. Couldn't attend the opening because I wouldn't have been able to make it up to Newark in time to eat all that remained of the ubiquitous cheese and cracker crumbs, but it looks like it was a mighty fine o-ccasion.

I almost forgot about the Making It alumni show at UArts, which opened on October 20th and stayed up for about ten days. My crocheted fish swam brazenly through the exhibit, along with two prints. However, one of the prints did not fare well; it emerged from the event with a jacked-up frame and some sort of schmutz smeared on the glass. There were a lot of great pieces in the show, though, and I really don't care about the frame. No big deal.

Thinking about scrapping the Palindromic Quilt idea, for now. For a while, I was toying with the idea of building a very small chest of twenty-five tiny drawers, one for each letter, which would contain elements pertaining to the dichotomous significance of each square. "There's no point in forcing these innocent materials into rigid letterforms," I thought aloud, "When I could just be stuffing them into little drawers! Why was all of that manhandling necessary? Drawers!!" Then a bunch of things happened, and I decided that I really don't want to think about any of the subjects upon which that quilt, or chest of drawers, or interpretive dance (who knows?), would be reliant.

Right now, antlers are being crocheted, and three more shadowboxes are being considered. A cat skull might eventually be involved. There's basically an entire series outlined in my sketchbooks, complete with unstinting critical analyses as well as reasons in support of and vehemently opposing the construction of each piece, and so on and so forth.

Speaking of cat skulls, here's a picture of The Whistle Pig. She is a most valued colleague during these dark days.


01 November 2011

09 September 2011

fee-yush


{ Some photos of ze fish . . .



. . . and an image of ze organism's possible home, taken in Atlantic City, NJ. }



07 September 2011

Dull Day

Somehow, listening to Biff Rose and The Birthday Party worked out this evening. I actually felt like doing something, despite the increasing monotony of Felix's absence and, uh, just bein' so dang tired. This impulse manifested itself in the genesis of tiny pants:


I'm going to make a tiny suit for a strange man with extraordinarily elongated, tapered limbs. The color of the fabric is nice, but I think I might bleach it when it's done. Some sort of utilitarian accessory might be necessary, but I don't want to get ahead of myself. Also, the final step of the suit-making process might involve the application of buttons hand-carved out of this:

I found it outside of an Indian restaurant in Bridgewater, New Jersey, on the 26th of August.

I've slowly been making progress in other areas (I guess). This dress is the main component of a prospective installation . . .


It involves snails.

* * *

I'm excited to create a collaborative art/correspondence blog with my great friend Allison Foley. That should generate some semblance of motivation for me to finish things a little more quickly!

06 July 2011

New Lady


HIC: The sensitive and disturbing early stages . . .






I worked on an experimental portrait the other day. The subject's head was constructed out of an old walnut shell. I used a piece of a bean to fashion her nose. You really don't want to know what I used to make her eyes.


I don't feel like saying anything else right now. Rest in peace, Helen.

12 June 2011

hitnanium protracity

My figures bear a striking resemblance to Asta Nielsen, an icon of silent cinema.



Moreover, one might also draw comparisons between Ms. Nielsen and an elongated version of myself (in my dreams).


It's real hot in my room. Real hot. Can't form sentences. The following things are plodding around my skull:





Badlands, Biba, Rita, Goodbody.

Good night.

06 June 2011

groats


Oh golly. An illustration that I did about a year ago was featured in the 322 Review, an online publication affiliated with Rowan University. Cool.


The image was completed during an independent study with Bob Byrd, while I was a senior at UArts. It's supposed to accompany Kafka's seventeenth Zürau Aphorism (I have never been here before: my breath comes differently, the sun is outshone by a star beside it.); it was among the three aphorisms that I chose to illustrate for the course, which was devoted to just that - the production of imagery in accordance with Franz Kafka's book of parables (one of my favorite things in the universe), placing an emphasis on the emotional (as opposed to the narrative) aspects of the cryptic imagery therein.

Also, here are a few images that I worked on during the long, freaky, and vapid hours I spent at my last place of employment. I forgot that I had these...just some, uh, digitally worked-on guys from my sketchbook and stuff, including a tiny Kafka (one of an embarrassingly huge collection).






I attempted to manipulate some of my 3-D stuff on Photoshop, too. The results are very strange but I kind of like them:




It's almost 8. I'm due to spend some time with my fish skeleton and a bottle of glue.

04 June 2011

hollowspine


New Guy finally has a home . . .


Hmm, I thought this image would be larger once I uploaded it. Oh well. I'd like to augment the clarity of his feet, along with some other details, but aside from that I guess he's done! The image is presently untitled. It's odd; I started working on this piece a few weeks before reading The Museum of Love by Steve Weiner. The first chapter of the book contains similar imagery of birds flying upside-down through dismal skies, from a young boy's perspective. Something compelled me to illustrate a segment of the text prior to actually reading it. Weird. Still...I don't think I'm going to extract title-fodder from the book, even though it contains plenty of nigh-considerable locutionary combinations.

I also completed another, uh, thing. This month's exhibition at The Soapbox is entitled "Lightness and Weight" and, as a participant, I thought it would be quite apposite to crochet a very delicate (and subsequently stiffened) fish skeleton:

I guess the foundation for the piece is partially aligned with my interest in rendering the likeness of something that can no longer grow, by way of a process that is based entirely upon proliferation. I like the idea of generating yardage in an antiquated manner and using that material to create the image of a creature that, despite its elevated position on the evolutionary scale, is stuck in a state of sustained dormancy.

The fish is also sort of an homage to Raymond Queneau's meditations on sea life, most specifically in the novel Saint Glinglin and in his treatise on 'pataphysics, which involves the notion that 'pataphysics is simultaneously everything and nothing. That principle kind of reflects the neutrality of the fish, its inconsequentiality, etc, which is how I interpreted the theme of the show. I've had fish on the brain for quite a while now. I listened to a lot of ocean-themed music as I crocheted and glued my way towards total fish manifestation.

This endeavor has opened up a whole can of worms. I'd like to crochet a pair of antlers. Also, I'm thinking about using a similar method to make jewelry. Crocheting is fun.

28 May 2011

S; Vocation


These images are a little late, but here's what I've done so far . . .



With this square, I attempted to implement another (sort of) Palindromic feature: the temperament of its craftsmanship contradicts the nature of its symbolism (or does it?). As the "First/Last Vocation" portion of the quilt, its construction relies on a sense of nonchalance that is totally inconsistent with the manner in which I would conduct myself at a place of employment. It's hard to say if I will utilize this method in the fabrication of the other squares - how will I assemble the "First/Last Relationship" square? Under the influence of rage as opposed to soppy adoration? Or perhaps engulfed by fury that slowly and methodically subsides as I progress from the remnants of my first relationship towards the one I am currently in? {It is my belief that such a system somehow manages to loosely adhere to the confines of a Palindrome. As a project that is endowed with myriad opposing values regarding form and content, as well as the attitude instilled in its construction, progresses towards a mid-point in its completion, a fugitive moment is encountered in which the piece's very essence can be not read but perceived uniformly from all directions.}

Actually, the significance of this first square (with regards to the project as a whole) is already defunct; I'm going to start working at a new shop on Wednesday.

-x-x-x-

I discovered this deceased dragonfly near Reading Terminal Market the other day. Although he (she?) was laying prostrate on the sidewalk in the midst of substantial foot traffic, his wings are perfectly intact. I scooped him up with a defunct Rapture leaflet and brought him home.




A few days ago, the white stripes on his body were kind of a seafoam green color. I have yet to figure out exactly what kind of dragonfly he is/was. I covered him with a Plexiglass box to protect his remains from crafty, roving centipedes...

07 May 2011

chattels


I need to get my goddamn chattels in order. I am currently in the midst of my final hours of service at a mid-century modern furniture store on Pine Street, where I have been employed since August. An uncomfortable, deteriorating chair, in addition to the significance of this day, caused me to spot and draw meaning (respectively) from this thing:


It popped right out of the seat cushion! I'm going to use it in the Sator Arepo Tenet Opera Rotas quilt that I had planned to make like five billion years ago. The material will form a dichotomous union with a few pieces of some curtains that hung in the window of my very first place of employment, The Record Den, which went out of business (Oddly enough, that is also why I'm leaving this job.). Thus, the "First/Last Job" square will materialize.

Initially, I had planned to create the entire piece within twenty-four hours on an appropriately palindromic date; specifically, the 20th of November, 2011. I think that was just a procrastination tactic. Also, there's a chance that I will manage to get another job by then, in which case the former constraints of this project would not permit me to use this rogue cushion stuffing. Eh, maybe such a breach from the fundamental formula derails the overall function of the endeavor, which is to analyze the relevance of the piece to any time other than the present (or the time of it's fabrication), but I don't know...that defiance says a lot about me, for better or for worse. Will the meaning be severely altered because of this adjustment? Nngh. It's possible that the significance of the entire undertaking was exhausted, squashed, immediately after its inception. I'm still going to go through with it.

The notion of constructing this thing within as many palindromic constraints as possible is still very important to me. I think I'll try to adhere to a somewhat palindromic date as I sew each individual square. Tonight, at 11:32 pm (May 7th, 2011, seven minutes plus five minutes past 11:20), the "First Job/Last Job" square will take shape.

The period that I spent working at this store was, in many ways, laden with awful events. I became involved with a person who, before moving to another hemisphere, conveniently sought me out, most likely with the intent of impressing his status as a grounded individual upon someone who didn't know him from Adam's off ox. This assertion was far from true and things ended pretty shittily, but I'm glad that the relationship ended (otherwise I wouldn't be with Felix, who is the one major exception regarding this ridiculous treatise on August-May distress). In addition, this period marked the passing of both my grandparents and an uncle, as well as the augmentation of hostility between housemates. A light dusting of suicide attempts amongst friends and job-related suspicions was thrown in, for good measure. Thus, this rogue cushion fragment is quite significant; it has supported my ireful butt for months.

28 March 2011

Verlust


Here is precursory image of New Guy in his room . . .


I also took some photos of another guy. Let's call him H. H was hastily created for an exhibition that my friend hosted at her house, back in November. He materialized in lieu of what I will refer to as a "Simulacrum of Loss" which, after many frustrating stabs at successful realization, took a morbid nosedive.




Good lord, look at his nostrils.

So...the "Simulacrum of Loss". Towards the end of the summer, I started working on this thing. My level of concern regarding the amount of my own hair that managed to plaster itself to the shower wall after I bathed was at an all-time high, and I was prompted to investigate an old habit: When I was young (Not true; I still do this. However, the facilities in my current house do not permit it.), I would draw images on the shower wall with hair that had fallen out of my scalp in the process of shampooing. Once, I drew my Vice Principal. It was weird, I guess.

I wanted to incorporate this practice into a three-part undertaking, on the subject of my own inclination towards the extraction of meaning from things that are governed entirely by spontaneity. Why does my hair really fall out of my scalp when I wash it?

In August, over the course of ten days, I did ten new hair drawings. Rather, I blindly adhered my hair to the wall with water. The renderings were photographed after each shower.

After that, I made a small book with ten pages. Each page featured a grid. I intended to graph each hair drawing out as accurately as possible with pencil. Then, using ink on tiny overlaying mylar sheets, I planned to highlight select curves, intersecting lines, tangents, etc., that caused the random compositions to resemble recognizable images, such as a chair or, say, an elephant. One of them definitely looks like a tooth.


So much erasing happened that I "temporarily" abandoned that part.

Initially, I had planned to contain all of the components of the project in a small table with a drawer; the photographs of my loose hair would hang above the table in a frame, and the book would be placed on the table's surface. The drawer would accommodate my favorite constituent of the project; after being divided into ten compartments, ten objects derived from the sketches would be placed in the drawer, under glass, like rare insects in a display case. I figured that they would be modified found objects, whose bearing would be even more universal and nonspecific than the ink overlays in the book, thus bringing the intended descent from spontaneity to lucidity to its target, or uh...somewhere in the vicinity.


I wound up with this:


That's when I gave up. Months later, after a lot of rumination, I think that the best way to arrange the elements of the piece would be to situate them in, for the lack of a better term, a spice rack. I'd like to construct a small shelf with a space for the photographs built right into it, along with compartments for the book...and maybe a comb. I'd like to carve the ten universal objects out of soap (preferably pink soap) and delicately house them in ten little chambers, behind glass.

Someday I'll finish it.