Sphinx O Gato?

A quicky.  Back in 2005 I carved a piece called Sphinx O Gato? which was part of The Gorilla-Fart Showcase (Partial Resurrection of The Gorilla-Fart Showcase) at Gallery West in Rock Island.  In a not uncommon fashion, after the show came down, Sphinx O Gato? kinda got buried under layers of works in progress and general studio mayhem/detritus.   Within the last year it got called into service as a improvised table top (See Old Friends, An Art Hero, and The Importance of Pickle Buckets) in both my studio and for Heidi Hernandez's cool piece Learning To Draw from Merican-Tastic! this past Summer at Bucktown.

Here's a shot from Merican-Tastic!

Anyway, extracting Sphinx O Gato? from the clutter prompted an overdue 'slappin-down some color'.  Like this...

The only way to follow up an obnoxious pink is to add an even more obnoxious green!

A nice warm cream color to play nicely with the other kids.

...and just a shot of dark purple to accent a few areas.

I certainly won't state that this is the final paint Sphinx O Gato? will ever see, but at the rate I am going, it could be 2019 before I proclaim it 'done' versus 'done for now'.

Old Friends, An Art Hero, and the Importance of Pickle Buckets!

Wow!  A while back I posted a blurb about a piece that Terry Rathje and I made for EX-CH-AN-GE -back in 2008 (at Quad City Arts Gallery).  The original painting was something I inherited from my friend Naomi Kamla.  Recently, Naomi contacted me to let me know that what I had labeled as a 'Crap-ass merchant-dude painting' was in fact, THE Sir Thomas More (Wikipedia link here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_More).  So, it is with great pleasure that I amend my previous statement.  Henceforth, I shall describe the initial painting as a 'Crap-ass Philosopher-Dude Painting'.  Thanks Naomi!!

Another friend that recently surfaced was a old piece Soul's Arc: The Voyage Home.  I had kind of lost track of what became of the piece which I made back in late 2000/early 2001.  A bad quality close-up below:

I was working on Delivery Especial when I realized that the base canvas was Soul's Arc underneath another piece called Without (check out the post 'Carving Part II: http://stevebankspunchingholesintherah-rah.blogspot.com/2012/04/carving-part-ii.html ).  Here is the current state of Delivery Especial.

Now onto one of my art heroes from graduate school -Antoni Tapies! (1923-2012).  Here is a link to Fundacio Antoni Tapies: http://www.fundaciotapies.org/site/spip.php?rubrique73  Prepare to set your brain to 'stun'....

Anyway, I fell in love with the textures he put on canvas.  I found out that he used pigment, marble powder, and bone glue to get his texture(s).  I was living in North Florida at the time and was too poor to afford to run my air conditioning, so I was pretty sure that I was NOT going to be able to use something as fancy-schmancy as marble powder or bone glue.  So I began to experiment with using QuikCrete (inexpensive cement) and instead of making the concrete with water, I merely used latex house paint to provide moisture.  The binder in the paint adhered the cement to the canvas nicely.

Here are some early-stage in-progress shots of a piece called Me & You so you can see the cement/paint mixture on a piece.

The effective working time for the paint/cement mixture is roughly 10 minutes.

Once it dries, I prime the surface at least two times with more latex paint/gesso (I prefer three times).  This extra priming helps to seal/smooth out the cement so it doesn't sop up tons of my comparatively more expensive oil paint.

Here are a few examples of some piece that have some elements of cement texture:

The Guardians from 1999 -one of my earliest painted constructions.

Skinner Box from 1999/2000 -one of my earliest mazes/painted constructions.  Below is a portion of the second stage of color on BroKin

In closing, two helpful household hints for the studio: Pickle Buckets and cardboard!  The use of space is always an issue in my studio (along with my artist friends).  Although nothing can replace a nice clean and sturdy workbench, I have found that using 5-gallon pickle buckets provides me with an acceptably stable work surface that is highly flexible AND can store all kinds of supplies and some tools.

I usually use 4 stacks of two pickle buckets to support whatever canvas I am working on.

If I am working on a ladder, I can stack the buckets higher and still have a surface to hold tools and supplies.

Another thing that I learned AFTER I was out of school was the importance of using a piece of cardboard while I 'paint'.  I paint on my pieces while they are horizontal (supported by my handy pickle buckets!).  I keep a piece of cardboard under my forearm for three reasons.  The first is that it increases the surface area that the weight of my arm places on the canvas (which will stretch out of shape/'dent' with too much pressure). Second, it keeps my arm out of the wet paint (I know if my hand is on the cardboard, I'm not smearing any fresh paint).  Finally, the comparatively smooth surface of the cardboard allows me to slide my arm/hand to lay down nice fluid lines without getting snagged on some texture.

A couple shots of the cardboard for the two of you who couldn't visualize what a slab of cardboard under my arm might look like!

Until next time, Keep your hands at 'Ten' and 'Two'......

Partial Resurrection of The Gorilla-Fart Showcase

Old stuff into new stuff.  Many of the pieces being worked on for 'Merican-Tastic' have elements from earlier pieces.  I can't say this was an intentional choice made in 'the beginning', it just happens to be one of the things (image-making aspects) going on in my studio work at the moment.

Here is an example of an original piece that is now being reworked, or ripped-up and collaged into new work, that came from another show I had back in 2005 at Midcoast Gallery West called: 'The Gorilla-Fart Showcase'.  On the outside chance you haven't encountered the term 'Gorilla-Fart' while sampling the cultural finery this world has to offer, the term comes from a my undergraduate years in Missouri.  We had a fine drinking establishment that would 'offer' a drink which was just a random concoction of various hard liquors called a 'Gorilla-Fart'.  Since my show was basically a mix of recent work, and I didn't want to fall back on the tried and true 'Recent Work By...' show title, I went with something more....memorable?......visceral?......literary?......crass?

Anyway, this first piece is called The Exodus Triptych, and it is a chronicle of my departure from The South (Texas) and return to The Midwest (Iowa).  The three panels are (from left to right): The Three Faces of Mr. Wonderful in Cha-Cha Mode, Purgatory, and Soul's Arc: The Voyage Home.

The wooden frames have long since been stripped off and turned into carved frames.  The Three Faces of Mr. Wonderful in Cha-Cha Mode is now part of Swan Dive Bomber (see earlier post post called Toy Pieces/Swan Dive Bomber).  I think Soul's Arc: The Voyage Home was completely (and unceremoniously) painted over.  Purgatory has been ripped up and has been re-incorporated into a new piece called Halcyon Days of Yore.

Halcyon Days of Yore is actually the merging of two older canvases with some new elements (the 'Bunny' and the text blocks).  It's also going to have a carved frame which I just started carving this evening.  Here are a couple of glimpses of the frame so far:

I have assembled the boards, and drawn and inked the images for the top and bottom portion of the frame.  The sides remain a doodle in a sketch book that needs to be flushed out more before it becomes 'carve-worthy'.

In the background of this image (from the opening night of 'The Gorilla-Fart Showcase') was a piece called Contraption.  Please note the people in the foreground were paid actors and not actually people having fun at one of my openings.

Here is a close-up of Contraption.

If you look at the base image of Babelmundo, you can still see some of the elements of Contraption peeking through.

Babelmundo and Metropolis were the first two canvases where I started to uses thin washes of paint to separate dense layers of imagery.  My most prominent memory of working on Babelmundo was the time/detail I had to put into the four ships circumnavigating the globe.  Speaking of Metropolis, here are a few progress shots.  I have probably completed the line work for this layer and just need to add color.

Once this new layer is 'done', the piece will go off to Heidi Hernandez to add the actual 'Merican-Tastic!' elements.