Spaces

This is a piece called "Spaces" that I did for my letterpress class. It's 2 photopolymer plates and a blind embossment of text (which you can't see), printed in an edition of 45. It's been done for a bit, but we just got them back and did an exchange of our broadsides today.

The assignment was to respond to an artist who does letterpress or bookwork. I chose Julie Chen. More specifically, I was responding to a line of text in her book "Panorama".

"Leave a space for the things that are gone so they will not be forgotten."

Something in that sentence that really inspired me. It almost made me cry the first time I read it.

The piece was first sketched out with the full quote, and the lone figure in the bed that you see a version of on the middle left. Originally, it was pretty obviously me. But after a really good discussion with my teachers about it, I changed it to be less about me, and more about an overall feeling that is shared throughout the human race. It was helpful, and I ended up with a much more successful piece because of this suggestion.

It was different for me. My work is generally so heavily autobiographical. And it still is here, but it's also more accessible, which I like. It's just hard for me to think this way on my own. I'm going to miss the sort of response and help I get with my art in school when I'm done.

I'd go on, but it's finals week, and I have tons of work to do.

Decades and Expectations

I am in an art show. It's opening this Friday, November 4th, from 6 to 8 in the Snow College gallery. It's an alumni show for folks that graduated there in the last 10 years, and from what I saw while dropping off my work yesterday, it's going to be really really good. You should come to the opening if you can. I will be there.

I've got two pieces in it. One of them is that "Things Used (Summer 2011)" book that I blogged about previously. The other is this.

  (I am really sorry about the image quality here. I'm planning to get a nice scan of it or something, and I'll update the image when I do. Just no time right now. Updated.)

It's a piece that, basically, is about how I feel like I can't expect anything from anyone or anywhere, and how, in contrast, the expectations people have for me are very clear cut and well known. It's one of those frustrations that hit me rather hard lately for several reasons.

I went to a place I expected to love and have had a very hard time adjusting. I finally had a space to do art and got the worst artist's block I've ever had. I basically ran out of money from my summer job, and haven't been able to find a new source of income. Someone I loved that promised to always be my friend sort of abandoned the idea, to the point where they suddenly stopped speaking to me for no apparent reason. And one person that I've sort of counted on having around in the future seems to have other plans.

They're really all separate issues. But as I wrote down my thoughts and feelings in my sketchbook, trying to figure out a way to visualize what I was feeling, I kept returning to that sentence. I just want to know what to expect.

I could go on, but I think I'll leave the commentary on my concept at that. I will say, making a piece of art I am actually proud of after so long made all the difference in the world. It's helped me adjust to where I am and come to peace with things. I feel much better now. Even if nothing really has changed, communicating the idea visually and getting it out there helps a ton.

"Expectations" is an intaglio printed photopolymer plate. It was printed in an edition of 5. If you have a chance to see it in person at that opening (or any other time) please do so. And let me know what you think of it.

Things

If everyone could just pretend I posted this an hour earlier and it was still September and I hadn't missed any months in my plan to blog at least every month this year, that'd be great.

Anyway, things are good. I guess. I've actually been having a really hard time being the new kid in a big city along with other more personal problems that I'll probably just share along with artwork about them, but it's getting better. At least, today was better. I drew a little comic, and that helped a lot. I've basically been working on this one project that was due on Tuesday for the last 11 hours. Finally getting something done with that was also good. Though I did have a bit of a breakdown and started sobbing at the train station around 4 this afternoon, things have improved some.

I've done some art, but haven't taken many pictures of said art. This photopolymer that I've been working on all day is what I thought I might post here for the month, but it's not done. Obviously. Thus the procrastination of blogging.

So the only piece I have a picture of is this one print that I started the semester off with and don't like much.

So this crappy crooked cell phone picture is of a print that I did about what I felt like I was doing for the summer by working for the government. I'm pretty far to the left politically, and it makes me sad that my country has a huge organization devoted to killing people. However, I know this is not how everyone feels, and I do not think any less of anyone who disagrees with me. Although that's what I believe, it's not something I generally find necessary to argue about. I don't think politics are worth offending people over, so I don't make art abut them usually, and I even try to avoid talking about them nowadays. This is why I don't like this piece. I feel like I can do better. I feel like I have more important things to say.

Technically speaking, though, I am proud of it. That's more colors than I've ever done in a single print before. It's pretty dang clean, and the registration's pretty decent for how quick I pulled it out. My favorite thing about it though is the colors. I sort of made them up as I went along, and doing the proof with these colors, everything seemed to be getting worse and worse. They looked awful together. They were all just garish and wrong, and I was sure that I would have to re mix all my ink, which really sucked. Then I pulled the keyblock. And with that black outline, magically, everything worked.

Printmaking is magic.

Things Used (Summer 2011)

 I love Letterpress. It's all the things I love about relief printing, plus it's easy, bigger edition sizes are more attainable, and everything is so much more consistent than it would be if I were inking by hand. I hope that I can own a really nice proofing press someday. If only they were still made.
 So, at the end of the summer, right as school was starting up, I did a workshop with the University of Utah's Book Arts program called Comic Relief: Alternative Letterpress Forms. It was delightful. We all made zines, then traded them among ourselves at the end. This was what I made.

 It's called "Things Used (Summer 2011)." It's a pack of cards rather than a more traditional book, and each card has an object that I used a lot over the summer. Included objects are a stamp, my comb, my laptop, my cell phone, my pillow, pencil and pens, toothbrush, plastic fork, shoes, glasses, bags, pants, keys, underwear, and my debit card. The process we used, using scratch film, allowed for a ton of detail, which was nice. (Sadly, now that I'm at the school, I don't have access to a good camera to photograph this detail. The light grey I printed with doesn't show well with cell phone pictures.) It was printed in an edition of 35, which is definitely a record for me.
 I'm taking a letterpress class now, and already enjoying it. The University of Utah is a good place to be for that. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to go proof some type.

This month

I said I was gonna do a blog every month this year, and dang it, it's gonna happen.

So, this month has been lacking in the art department mostly. Though for a little while I've been working on this.

It will, hopefully, someday be a finished 50 page comic. Unlike my last comic project, I'm trying not to rush it, and am paying attention to things like consistency and perspective. Distance Makes the Heart Grow Fonder was just a working title at first, but it'll probably stick. It's all autobiographical like February 4th was, though it covers a lot more time, and of course has a different structure.

ART SALE!!!

I have finally listed some stuff on my Etsy store!
For this week, everyone gets free shipping, unless you're outside the U.S. and only buying one thing. Then you get cheap shipping.
I have a special offer, too! I am selling old artwork for super duper cheap. $3 for an original etching/aquatint. There are only 6 of them in the whole edition. Notice that my next least expensive item is $75. So yeah, get em while you can! When they are sold out, I will wait a week, then sell more cheap old art. But this is probably the best of the cheap old art, honestly. And they may go up in price to like 5 or 10 bucks next time, depending.
Also, if you're familiar with my art, leave me a comment and let me know what you'd like to see go up for sale!

More Than Anything

I did something silly when I moved back home. I left my two newest matrices, the one for the print I showed you in the last post and the one I'm about to show you, in the studio of the school I graduated from last month. Luckily my boyfriend is taking summer classes there at the moment, so he is keeping them safe for me until I come to visit.
I don't have any new prints, any progress on previous work, nothing. I've been pretty lame art-wise this last month. Summer tends to get that way for me. Hopefully this blog will help make me create something new.
In the meantime, here's my print(s) that made it into the student show this year (and won the Director's Award). It's called "More Than Anything."

 

It's a pretty big photo there if you click on it. Which you'll probably want to do to see it at all.