Home and Adventure

My Buffalo Arts Studio show Home was a learning experience. Mostly I learned what not to do, but I relish experiences like that so I will take it with me. One of those things was that I didn’t really express myself too clearly on the nature of the work. I am notoriously terrible about speaking about anything. I get nervous and mumble, terrified of my own mouth. Poor Cori did her best with my long rambling emails and if she wasn’t a world class baker I would have gotten her a pastry of some sort for being an absolute patient saint with me.

The show itself was representative of a series of interviews I  conducted with individuals concerning their family, the most significant physical home of their childhood, and the dynamics between their family members. Each of the timeline pieces was a family tree. The insects used were chosen carefully to suit the subjects and/or their parents by matching dominant characteristics. I kept the circular theme of self that was also present in Smother by utilizing glass petri dishes as containment devices for the insects, and mimicking the shape in the painted portions of the diagrams. Red represented a death, white an absence.

The smaller works were representations of the subjects as a fully fledged adult. The insect chosen to represent them as larva in their timeline was recreated in adult form to continue their story.

The light boxes were the two subjects I found most engaging, and wanted the viewer to be able to access and and address the content of the work in a more direct way. With these larger backlit pieces you were able to make out the fact that they are mostly images directly dealing with the concept of family. (various medium format snapshots of buffalo, x-rays of a family pet, etc). The two subjects in question had an extreme attachment to home and family, despite telling me otherwise. I felt it fitting to represent them as adults perpetual emerging from their homes.

Maybe that makes sense, maybe it a ramble.  I am still learning how to speak without tripping over myself so I don’t mind. I am also learning how not to do carpentry on my bedroom floor, even out of necessity, and how to utilize friends when you want to learn an entirely new skillset.

As far as current things go I am doing a fun fundraising event for Hallwalls Wednsday the 29th you should really check out. There will be so many incredible artists there though, I am sure I will have a world of personal struggle trying not to buy everything in sight.

Other Projects:

I missed deadlines for booking a table at small press this year so “Milk, Eggs, Hollowpoints” is put on hold until Alex moves here at the end of June. This will be beneficial because yelling about frames over the internet at each other isn’t really getting much done in a timely manner.

I am however steadily working on “So I heard this book is about birds”. That should end up really fun in the end, especially if I can somehow convince the incredible Tom Holt to color the cover for me.

I kind of want to keep this I won’t lie

Snaps with my cell of the piece I made for the Alzhiemer’s Association. I one of the five paired artists for the Memories in the Making event that is February 19 at Asbury Hall (the Hallwalls building on Delaware).

These were taken before completion. That hole in the wing in a kind of interior container with a glass front and some objects inside. I am fiddling with getting it lit from within properly. I am not too sure how it will be received in the end, perhaps people should stop giving me free reign to do as I please.