it's kinda grey and threatening rain today so here's a little some color to add to your saturday. Enjoy! (Nina is a dancer in the baltimore area whom I've had the pleasure of taking a few classes from, she is wonderful and so is her troupe Aubergine)

I haven't posted any kind of updates in a long long while.... so I feel it's about time that I do so :)

I haven't fallen off the face of the earth! I'm finding that my pace of work has slowed since graduating university and getting a full time day job, spending on average about a year on a painting (at least I work on 3 or 4 at a time usually). The trade off is that I feel like the work has gotten more elaborate and detailed and I've been really happy with where I'm going and I'm dedicated to continuing.

Lately that progress has been a bit derailed by circumstance, namely a major fire in the apartment that I was living in which lead to my current temporary living arrangements and gearing up to buy a house - at which point I'll leave my rented studio space and set up shop in my new basement. I have paintings (and eveything else really) to clean, moving to do, and 3 freshly stretched and gessoed canvases ready and waiting.... oh what fun I have in store for those clean white surfaces....

Jen

Summer time...

So I've been a bit absent from the internet over the past few months. Kind of hard to believe in this current day and age I'm sure... But we've had a beautiful spring here in the Mid-Atlantic and the summer has begun full force with a serious heat wave the past few days. I have to say it's just what I wanted after the cold fierce winter we had. Since my last post I've gone on vacation to San Diego, opened my etsy store, and finished a few paintings. I thought I would post a few pictures here so you can see what I've been up to. Enjoy!

Research

Research is a good thing... I've been moving towards Persian rugs lately. The motifs are often similar to the ones that I've found while looking at mosaics and illuminations, but the styles and particularly the history of carpetry seems a little more robust to me. I'm particularly drawn to the idea of the Tree of Life carpet designs - it could make for some interesting symbolism. But for now, I'm just beginning to look.

Mid-winter thoughts

The holidays are done, and a few days ago I saw a headline on the News Journal website that I hadn't seen in a long time. "Local Muslims Fear Backlash" I was a little busy with enjoying the company of my brother who came from out of town and just doing the normal holiday 'holy crap my brain can't take anymore work' relaxation thing - so I wasn't really paying attention to the national news until a while after the whole underwear bomber thing occurred. Was I surprised that someone tried to do something stupid? No - not really. I think it would make a really good Darwin Award actually.

What I was surprised to hear was the suggested methods for increasing our airport security soon after. I actually had to listen to a close family member argue in *favor* of racial profiling to prevent fundamentalist Islamic attacks. Of course this particular family member is a fundamentalist Christian. Not long after that, its body scanner talk all over the place. I'm planning on flying in about a month, and I will not stand in front of one of those stupid things. But I'm also blonde haired and blue eyed with very pale skin. My name is about as White Bread and Mayonaise as it gets. I probably won't be given any problems. All I know is that I think that the local Delaware Muslims who inspired that article are right to be scared. Because there are people out there who are arguing in favor of racial profiling.

When will other White Bread and Mayonaise people learn that its ok to have a little variety in your culture? Avoiding racial profiling is not being "politically correct" its an effort to find more accurate and efficient methods.

Carpet Miniature

gouache on paper

2"x3"

Protest

I watched an episode of PBS' Art21 program today because I found myself in need of some direction. Being out of the art centric environment of school can be a bit challenging, actually I remember being told by professors that continuing to make meaningful work is the biggest downfall of art majors. And I look back at pictures and memories of myself being immersed in my art and how much I loved it, now I have to continue to make without being immersed. Bills have to be paid after all, I didn't have someone else to pay for my schooling, its all on my head.

So I watched the episode of Art21 that focused on artists who's work functions as a protest... because its something that I consider fairly often. I don't consider myself a protestor in the general sense of artist creating volitile or repugnant images that make you realize what we're doing is wrong. I like pretty things, quite a lot really, and I see nothing wrong with wanting to make things that are beautiful. I often feel that focusing on the negative and pointing out the wrongs is a good way to create apathy and depression. Those emotions don't usually get anything done. Instead they result in people tuning out, getting drunk, getting high, sleeping all day, staring at mindless tv (has anyone seen the latest animal planet craze of pet talent show competitions?) or whatever other escape they can create. In short, nothing happens.

This doesn't mean that I don't see the value in protesting or pointing out the wrongs. By all means people should be aware. But it becomes overwhelming. And so my mind brings me to my so-called solution. Beauty is all too often ignored. Ansel Adams brought reform by photographing the beauty of wild and virgin American lands. Its not an unheard of approach.

Culture is often beautiful and often misunderstood. Its long been the practice to consider the "other" to be wrong or ugly or horrifying. Culture is also often destroyed by conflict and the desire to force one's culture on another. I was horrified that day in March in 2003. I was a distraught teenager who's mother was knocking on the door asking why on earth this event upset me so much. I couldn't really answer her... I was just scared. Years later, the war continues, and I know a little more about what there is to be so distraught about. Mosques have been destroyed, landscapes scarred, people killed and chased away from their homes. Politicians can spew their purposes all they want, but a culture is slowly being erradicated. The more I looked, the more I realized that its much larger than the war I originally protested and mourned, its much larger than any one event. Its really a lot larger than I can even comprehend, so I'll take my bits and pieces and put them together so I can understand.

This leads me to a way of working, culturual cut and paste... Middle class white american mom's making scrapbooks of their kids, intellectuals recreating historical painting methods and mediums, historical art movements and Islamic art. Its a whole lot of what happens to catch my eye. But within that selection, a pattern of two cultures who are trying to kill each other with astonishing similarities comes out. I'd like to think that the familiarizing the people around me with the beauty that can be found and combined from two seemingly rival sources can be a protest. I'd like to think that familiarizing the "enemy" creates empathy. And when the "towel heads" or whatever rediculous horrible name they've created this week become familiar, we won't be so quick to think that they need to be erradicated.

Some day, I'd like to see the mosques of Iran and the mountains of Afghanistan, and I think its a little messed up that its currently not safe for me to do so. And that's largely why I work with the particular patterns that I do.

Fragility

Its a thought that I have often, what happens when something breaks? Eventually it happens, paint cracks, someone left it in the bright sun, there was a fire, the pottery fell off the shelf, etc, etc. Having a (slight) background in conservation, specifically for books, it irks me. I avoid clear scotch tape like the plague, I'm not even sure I own any at this given moment. Masking tape makes me cringe just a bit too... its one of those things that after you've seen what 50 year old plastic tape does, you just don't go back.

However part of me sees a great deal of value in fragility, you can't take it for granted as easily if it disappears with the next rain. You can't cling to it and ignore the rest of the world if it will shatter. I have a fascination with sand mandalas and the ritual process of destroying them. It puts much more focus on the process and less on the finish product, and at times when there is too much stuff and too little space to live in it just seems like a good idea.

I suppose I could attempt to decide between the two, but I'm not much of a decision maker.

What I can say is that I have watched a few paintings fade away because the ink wasn't light fast, as the artist its not a pleasant feeling. I've broken more than a few of my ceramic pieces as well, one quite recently which has gotten me on to this thought path. I think I'd almost like to be less attached to the finished products, but if I wasn't attached I'm not quite so sure who would be. Either way, I want to make something that will disappear on purpose...