Moai

Moai, the giant Easter Island statues built by the society that collapsed there, are shaping up to perhaps become a potential theme in my art. They are a re-occurring symbol in the Leadership Calgary course I am taking (something for a future blog) of the blinding power of short-term economic & political gain and they threaten to crush long-term survivability.

I've always wanted to go to Easter Island and ride horse back. I may have had a dream like that once.

Dilophosaurs part deux (still in progress)

Dilophosaurs (in progress)

ABSTRACTED SCIENTIFIC EXPRESSIONIST DINOSAURS

Does this adequately describe my art?

Papo dino

I last bought a dinosaur model in 2007 at the Tyrrell: the very awesome Spinosaurus

I found some more recently on our drive back through Canmore during our recent vacay in Fairmont, BC. One was from the Schleich line, a line that I've become familar with for their animal models that CRB loves. Their dinos are alright, and I purchased their Saichania. However, I'm finding the Papo line even better. Along with Saichania I got Triceratops & Stegosaurus. I thought the latter two were Schleich but upon closer examination I discovered they were Papo, like Spinosaurus. Would love to get a Velociraptor & Tyrannosaurus. Maybe even Parasaurolophus.
;-)

Remember, these are for business purposes.

New Tric

Training ...

Cam-stract Art

My first(?) intentional abstract (on canvas.) Most of my work starts fairly abstract, then I attempt to arrest control and impose a concept on a work. I've decided to let it go for now and not imprint a personal archetype (i.e. dinosaur) onto the work. It doesn't mean that I'm going to stop that altogether - both means have a value - but it's a good exercise to let things be sometimes. Or perhaps a divergence is emerging in my work as I've been experimenting with dinos on wood lately. Either way I'm learning about how I work. The abstract was done in the evening & I'm not one for working in the evening, I'm much more of a morning person. When I was in university I was never one of those students who burned the midnight oil in the studios at night, I preferred to get in early in the morning before classes to start working.

At the time I was working on the abstract I figured that I'm better for works that require more concentration (accuracy in drawing, composition) in the morning. The abstract doesn't require concentration in the same way, in fact it's more of an exercise in observation: seeing how the paint moves and mixes and making slight adjustments. So it's an exercise that I can do at night, an exciting development because it expands the scope of hours I can operate artistically.

Beyond Minimalism

Last weekend I took part in a show: 5th Annual Winter Art Stroll, in conjunction with the Triangle Gallery. The title of the show was Beyond Minimalism and was an extension of the Triangle's Neo-Minimalism exhibition exploring new Canadian minimalist art. I submitted Pachyrhinosaurus:

"The image of the ceratopsian dinosaur Pachyrhinosaurus emerges from the stains and washes on raw canvas. The liquid residue evokes one of the many flash floods that struck the lands in Late Cretaceous Alberta 70 million years ago. These watery calamities preserved the remains of many ceratopsian dinosaurs, providing the fossils of bones which paleontologists – and artists – use to piece together the appearance and deduct the behaviors of these extinct animals. Through these minimal remains an ancient world returns to life in our imaginations. The washes and stains also denote a beginning for the artist: the first stirring of creativity as the liquid and color coalesce and life within the painting bursts forth in the form of a Pachyrhinosaurus, echoing down the years to the earliest creative expression of the artist. "

I also included Stegosaurus, it's a work that fit the theme of the show.

Be There

Here I Am

Here I am at Burst and Bloom Gallery. I guess I never really told the story of how I end up here.

I was looking in the weekly FFWD newspaper and I did something I rarely do: I read the classified. I suppose that I've been musing about a 'career' change recently but that has to do with my day job. Anywise, doing something I normally do not I came across an ad for Burst & Bloom @ Art Central. They were looking for another director for the gallery. I decided to inquire about it and what that meant was another partner for the gallery, which meant an opportunity to display my art. I was aware of the gallery previously with Tamar, whom I went to school with, who was displaying there. I decided to jump in: it was a great opportunity to have some work displayed (which I had not done in nearly a year) in the downtown core. Yes there is some financial risk (as a Taurean will remind me) - but opportunity as well. Meetings with the other artists have yielded the the desire to seek a larger gallery space in the future and branch out to en devours outside the normal gallery setting - be more than just a place that sells images and reach out to the community and make connections with artists & galleries outside of Calgary.

My first painting goes up on a wall in December ... now it's deciding what to put up! (I foolishly tried to create something new for the occasion, in other words tried to force/rush a work. Not the best idea ... I just hope I can recover for a future exhibition.)

Teasers

Contemporain

I had the pleasure of seeing the La Triannale quebecois when I was in Montreal in June. It was exciting to experience a large contempory art museum that not only gets national artists but great international shows (I recall there was a Kiefer show there last year.) La Triannale was very good to see, a great cross-section of art from installations, paintings, sculpture and photography. I couldn't take any pictures inside so I've more pictures of the outside.

One of the hilights was a video display by Gary Hill . It was pretty neat: two 'portrait' of a woman where while one was looking out at the viewer the other would look at the other portrait ... and then switch.

It was also a thrill to see one of favourite artists: David Altmajed. He was Canada's representative at the 2007 Venice Biannale They had some of his giant mythological sculptures on display - the scale and complexity of his work was quite amazing.

Rise of the Spinosaur (and other occurances)

Back in March of this year I started working three days a week at the office job in order to devote more time to my art practice at my home studio. After some eventful months I'm starting to get back into creating more art. I've a large work occupying my living room right now: Spinosaurus!

Right now I'm trying to compose the octagons and I've been playing with many different arrangements. I'm leaning more to off-centring the cluster now --- once I figure out that I think this one will be complete.

(There is a bit inspiration from my wife Michelle and I's honeymoon --- in particular a passanger we picked up in Tunisia.)
Another work that I've started is Stegosaurus. It's on a little more sane scale, but I think the composition I've envisioned for it works for that and shape of the canvas. I'm experimenting with kind of reversing my usual process so I'm curious to see where it ends up.

Ceratopsian Symposium 2007

I had a wonderful opportunity this past weekend as I was invited to attend the Ceratopsian Symposium at the Royal Tyrrell Museum and exhibit some of my paintings.

Michelle & I loaded up the rented van on Friday and set out to Drumheller. We set up the paintings in the Specimen Room, the Poster Room & hallway of the Learning Centre (which were just open for symposium attendees.) That night the museum hosted a icebreaker where there was some social mingling and 'backstage' tour of the technician labs where the fossils are prepared and studied after being brought in from the field. I've always wanted to go back there!

Saturday & Sunday hosted presentations throughout the day, in between which people could view the Specimen Room (and some of my artwork.) I had a lot of very positive feedback about my work. Many comments about them being beautiful, creative---yet staying true to scientific inquiry. A lot of business cards were taken so it was very successful from a networking point of view. It was interesting to meet palaeontologists and other dino-enthusiasts and receive their impressions and make contacts.

I have to thank Dr. Brinkman who invited me to join this symposium and Tyrrell staff who were very helpful.

I also have to thank my beautiful wife Michelle for doing so much to help me prepare for this show, load the paintings, drive out to Drumheller, set up the show and then do it all over again at the end of the weekend (plus watch me go all dino-nerd.)

21st Century Leviathan

By Susan Casey, Photographs by Gregg SegalFeb 20, 2007 - 12:03:05 PM

Fate can take strange forms, and so perhaps it does not seem unusual that Captain Charles Moore found his life’s purpose in a nightmare. Unfortunately, he was awake at the time, and 800 miles north of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean.

It happened on August 3, 1997, a lovely day, at least in the beginning: Sunny. Little wind. Water the color of sapphires. Moore and the crew of Alguita, his 50-foot aluminum-hulled catamaran, sliced through the sea.

Returning to Southern California from Hawaii after a sailing race, Moore had altered Alguita’s course, veering slightly north. He had the time and the curiosity to try a new route, one that would lead the vessel through the eastern corner of a 10-million-square-mile oval known as the North Pacific subtropical gyre. This was an odd stretch of ocean, a place most boats purposely avoided. For one thing, it was becalmed. “The doldrums,” sailors called it, and they steered clear. So did the ocean’s top predators: the tuna, sharks, and other large fish that required livelier waters, flush with prey. The gyre was more like a desert—a slow, deep, clockwise-swirling vortex of air and water caused by a mountain of high-pressure air that lingered above it.

The area’s reputation didn’t deter Moore. He had grown up in Long Beach, 40 miles south of L.A., with the Pacific literally in his front yard, and he possessed an impressive aquatic résumé: deckhand, able seaman, sailor, scuba diver, surfer, and finally captain. Moore had spent countless hours in the ocean, fascinated by its vast trove of secrets and terrors. He’d seen a lot of things out there, things that were glorious and grand; things that were ferocious and humbling. But he had never seen anything nearly as chilling as what lay ahead of him in the gyre.

It began with a line of plastic bags ghosting the surface, followed by an ugly tangle of junk: nets and ropes and bottles, motor-oil jugs and cracked bath toys, a mangled tarp. Tires. A traffic cone. Moore could not believe his eyes. Out here in this desolate place, the water was a stew of plastic crap. It was as though someone had taken the pristine seascape of his youth and swapped it for a landfill.

How did all the plastic end up here? How did this trash tsunami begin? What did it mean? If the questions seemed overwhelming, Moore would soon learn that the answers were even more so, and that his discovery had dire implications for human—and planetary—health. As Alguita glided through the area that scientists now refer to as the “Eastern Garbage Patch,” Moore realized that the trail of plastic went on for hundreds of miles. Depressed and stunned, he sailed for a week through bobbing, toxic debris trapped in a purgatory of circling currents. To his horror, he had stumbled across the 21st-century Leviathan. It had no head, no tail. Just an endless body. [more]

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This has to be one of the most startling articles I've come across lately. The subject matter is akin to what I was orignally considering for my thesis project last year about the prevelance of chemicals in the world, from the liquids we drink, foods we eat, materials we use to build & live with everyday. I never quite figured out how to express it, I couldn't really develop a visual theme for the subject matter. I kind of touched on environmental issues (degradation, extinction) in my eventual thesis, but this article really illustrates a concern of mine.

Important Lesson

My beautiful, smart wife taught me a lesson last weekend.

As I was going about trying to create some art I was taking taking pieces of artwork that I'd started and trying to embelish them with new details. These were pieces that I really should have left alone--they were probably at a state of resolution. So I think I may have ruined some pieces (maybe ruined is too harsh--I didn't necessarily improve them.) I felt uncomfortable with the work I was doing and Michelle told me exactly what the problem was: I need to have sizable, blank canvas ready to go if I feel the itch to work so I can roll over to new works, a 'blank slate', rather than trying to get additional ideas onto previous works.

Hoping to get out tommorrow to get some new stretching bars to have some fresh canvas ready to go.

Works in progress

After months away art production I'm slowly getting back into the habit. I've some small works I'm finding my way through at the moment. I generally don't do well with small works, I seem more at ease with a larger working area but I can occassionally produce something on a small scale. I've been learning not to overwhelm an area with too many ideas at once--larger works kind of give me the space to move & work out more ideas. Working in series helps too to spread ideas out over serveral works. If I've learned anything about art the key is knowing when to stop. It's lesson I've had to learn because I had a habit of working thing until they were overworked. It's something I still have to keep in mind. It's something especially important considering the kind of material I've been working with: delicate handmade paper (from Nepal.) I find the paper a bit of an interesting contrast with the subject matter in one of the works: the ceratopsian Styracosaurus. With a large spikey frill it seems hardly delicate. However, I've illustrated it from behind the frill to show a more delicate side of the dinosaur (neck.) I've also include flower imagery in the work. Flowers have a delicacy to them & flowering plants first made their appearance towards the end of the Cretaceous Period, the same time as the Styracosaurus. Not sure if this one is done: I think it's close. It's getting to the point now that I'm worried if I do any more it may be ruined. Or maybe it is already. Will have to spend time staring at it.

A part of me does worry about how far I can push the dinosaur thing. I think it's an interesting subject matter & I think I've plenty more ideas in mind to try. Just as long as it retains that freshness, that they don't start looking too contrived. I've been away from large scale works for almost a year so I'm looking forward to getting back into that and seeing what happens.

Klimterobics

Been reading a book on & getting more into the work of Gustav Klimt. One passage in the book that really stuck with me was a description of his daily routine when he was spending time outside of Vienna in the country:

-early rising

-painting

-breakfast

-swimming

-painting

-lunch

-nap

-swimming or rowing

-tea

-painting

Quite the daily schedule. I had a somewhat similar routine in university (though not as rigorous) wherein I liked to be in the studio early before anyone else & start some work, then stop for lecture, more painting, swim, lunch then more painting (or classes.) I've always been one to stress physical well being in regards to art: when I'm healthy I've more stamina and energy for long periods of creativity. I find this to be a more balanced, healthy and in the long run, more productive means of art creation, rather than leaning on chemical inspiration. I think Matthew Barney also has that peak physical process in his work, the aesthetics of athleticism, although I've yet to apply my physical body to art creation the way he does.

The Tower

This past Thursday (Jan.18) I was in an art show at the Calgary Tower as a part of The Emerging Canadian Artist Profiling Initiative (ECAP). It was in celebration of their fifth anniversary and the start of an effort to expand the program to other venues in the city. It was a really wonderful event they hosted. I haven't been up to the Calgary Tower in years so it was a real treat for Michelle & I to go up there, look at art, get served wine & great food! (Unfortunately, we didn't bring a camera to record the event)

It was really nice to get back into the art scene, something I haven't felt a part of for a long time. Now I've some pieces hanging in the Tower restaurant (albeit older ones), but any public exposure is a good thing, especially in a high profile landmark like that.

Line In the Sand

Recent show at the U of C with Tamar & Naama Messer. Things didn't go exactly to plan as we were supposed to be in the Little Gallery but got bumped due to a double booking. We did find another room that worked for the most part. Tamar & Naama travelled through Israel whilst the recent war and their art was informed by the experience. My work was concerned with Alberta but we had a common theme: land & identity. 'Line in the Sand' has a double meaning that suited both our works: it describes the geological time, the strata that my work had & it's a phrase that means staking a claim and warning another party not to cross a threshold under threat.