The Biological Reaction to Seeing a Small Child

This is a piece I did for my letterpress class. I like the idea and overall composition and colors. But frankly, I'm a bit disappointed with myself on this one.

It's about being baby hungry. I wanted it to be absurd as well as understandable and relatable, and I sort of think those two things are felt pretty separately in different parts of the text. I also overdeveloped my plate with the text, washing out punctuation as well as a few letters. I think I could have spent more time with the text, but I got to a point where I just needed to print it and be done.

It was printed in an edition of 50 copies. I would like to sell them so others who can enjoy them instead of looking at them with disgust at the little technical things that went wrong can have them. So. $25 each, along with shipping and stuff to wherever you are. Either send PayPal money or a message to find another way to do it to trishelle_jeffery@yahoo.com, and you can have a print. Everyone else I've shown them to thinks they're lovely. So really, I think it is just me that would rather be rid of the things.

Below I'll post the text that's in the print, in case it isn't terribly legible on your screen.

Show!

This is just a quick teensy blog to let everyone know about Battleground States, in case you don't already. I am so excited to be a part of this show.

I'm just going to copy and paste the press release, because I'm running a little bit low on time at the moment. Also because it's better than anything I would write. Also, look at that artist's list! Happy happy happy.

Battleground States brings together artists who critically engage with the discourse of visual culture and gender studies. Through video, sculpture, installation, and photography, these artworks explore ideas of how figuration, the body and identity intertwine.

The exhibition narrative moves along fusions, ambiguities and disconnections between the figure and the self. The story begins with Utah artist Trevor Southey as his process of self-realization and style of figurative painting has made him an art historical pivot when discussing gender politics within the culture of Utah. Each artist addresses the difficulties of personhood, the pressures and rites of the everyday, the empowering symbols, the aesthetics of repression, and the eventual dissolve to reveal a location inclusive and open to anyone. Generations of artists from across the globe set the figure on a course in which concepts of coupling or completing the self are represented as spiritual quests.

"Gender duality is a cultural concept that deserves questioning and this collection of artists and ideas does that,” said Aaron Moulton, senior curator at UMOCA. “This exhibition brings an unprecedented roster of contemporary artists together to ask whether the body and its representations can tell us who we are."

Battleground States analyzes the space between traditional gender duality exploring alternative forms such as the third gender, a largely foreign concept in Western culture. In their non-Western roles, these alternative identities denote a space for possibility and transcendence. Battleground States can be seen as in-between states, not fitting neatly within a concept of black and white but rather an indeterminate and borderless state of gray. Moving from ideas of hybridity, dedifferentiation and alternative unions, the exhibition investigates notions of the “post-gender” as a way to better understand how our cultural diversities allow interpretations of a third space.

Artists: Daniel Albrigo, Absalon, Bas Jan Ader, Matthew Barney, Tobias Bernstrup, Robin Black, Nayland Blake, AA Bronson, Heather Cassils, Nicole Eisenman, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Jonathan Horowitz, Trishelle Jeffrey, Amy Jorgensen, Asma Kazmi, Terence Koh, Annie Leibowitz, David Levine, Matt Lipps, Georges Minne, Carlos Motta, Takashi Murakami, Shirin Neshat, Bertrand Planes, Genesis Breyer P-orridge, Dean Sameshima, Jack Smith, Trevor Southey, David Wojnarowicz, Patrick Tuttofuoco, Guido van der Werve

The opening is tonight! From 6 to 10 or so. There's also another opening at the UMOCA tonight and a performance by Tobias Bernstrup around nine. I met him last night. Seems to be a lovely fellow. Should be a grand time.

If you can't come to the opening, the show will be up until January 5th. The UMOCA is at 20 S West Temple in Salt Lake City. They're open every week Tuesday through Saturday until six. Come and check it out!

Books!

This last spring semester I took a class called Artists' Books. It was delightful. I made some work I liked quite a bit, and learned a lot. All the books I made for the class were part of an exhibition at the end of the semester, and then the Book Arts Program at the  took some images of all the books everyone made for their own use. I just got the books back, and photographed them myself with my dirty bedsheet as a backdrop because I don't have the nicer ones that were already taken.

A couple more screenprints, long overdue

I've been a very bad blogger lately. It was a very busy semester, but I shant bore you with excuses.

Lucky for those of you who are interested in looking at the things I do, I was busy because I was making art. So here's some of that. I think instead of dumping everything into one blog, I'll just let this be with a couple of screenprints.
Number one, Maturation.

This is a print I'd been wanting to do for a long time, and finally got around to this semester. I remember the day in elementary school we had this lesson. Our parents had to sign papers to say whether we could go or not. It was all so terrifying.
This print was done with 7 layers. One of them (the pink background) was a watercolor monoprint layer. I repeated the same idea for each print in the edition, repainting every other print, but some of the backgrounds were ghost prints, and are much less vibrant. I like both looks just fine, but they certainly vary.

Number two, Bus Stop.

This was my final for my screenprinting class, and I figured, considering the timeframe and the amount of stress I was under at the time, that a portrait of me having a mental breakdown at a bus stop was perfectly appropriate. Surprisingly enough, I didn't burst into tears and make strangers uncomfortable at any bus or train stops as the semester came to an end. I expected to. It certainly wouldn't be the first time. But I managed to keep the breakdowns to less public places this time around.
Still, I'm really interested in how people react when we see other people suffering with severe emotional turmoil. Sometimes, it's the only way to make the connection you need to, I've found.
This print was also 7 layers, but in many of them I sponged off the ink and let the screen dry, then filled in areas with screen filler. I then printed the same stencil again with the same ink, making a darker shade of the same color, and giving some nice subtle changed that implied shadows and patterns.

I'll probably blog again very soon with some shameless begging for you to buy some art from me at deeply discounted prices, so keep your eyes open! I just may do that tomorrow. But alas, now it is time for me to sleep.

Jealous

I pulled my very first screenprint yesterday! Woo!

Screenprinting is different. It will take some getting used to, for sure. I like how immediate it is. I like being able to draw something and just have that be my print. I like it for a lot of the same reasons I like doing photopolymer plates. It suits my style well. But it's very different to print, and I've got a long way to go before I'm really comfortable with it.

So in general, I'm happy with the image on this one, but not so much the printing job. But I'm happy enough with the image and easy enough on myself for this being my first time that I'll show it off a bit anyway.

As far as what it's about and whatnot, I think I'm going to leave most of that unsaid rather than go into detail and share everything going on in my life like previous blogs. I think the little girl is a younger version of myself, but I'm not really sure. I wish sometimes that the people that mattered most in my life were more proud of the things I do that I'm proud of. But I'm trying too see more good and be more happy lately, even if I do want to talk about stuff like that. At least in this piece, I think I managed to do both, say something that's been on my mind heavily and not having the art be sad.

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.