Opening

I am pleased to report surviving two nights of openings! We had a wonderful crowd, good food and music, but most of all, it was a good experience to get so much work out of the studio and into a new space. I was amazed at how all of our (my two studiomates Brooke and Susana and I) work looks interspersed together. There are so many similarities and nuances I never would have noticed with everything segregated and piled in the studio.

I do also admit to feeling a bit strange about so much work being absent as I'm back in the studio now. It sort of feels like I've lost some dear pets or children and I'm sitting and wondering what to do without them.

So, it is all the more incentive to get new work done, which I am beginning- a large charcoal drawing on glued sections of tracing paper- taking some favorite motifs from the earlier drawings. More on that next time.

The show was interesting to see so many of the drawings installed on a wall from floor to ceiling. I at first almost backed down, still unsure of that idea from an earlier critique. The gallery owner was very interested in that installation, though, and insisted I stick with it. So I climbed the ladder after arranging things in what made the most sense on the floor, and put up a large collage. It was interesting to see this with a print done over the summer that sort of embodies all of those feelings, as well as the projection running my animation of the drawings right next to it. I think that was certainly a favorite part- seeing the animation replay and reinforce all of the work hanging on the wall. The same happened for Brooke with both her dollhouse and painting/collage pieces.

So hopefully there is a way to do that- to put it all together, possibly on separate walls, without it looking all cluttered and not like a "rummage sale." I would like the work to reinforce itself, not negate.

Till then, here are some images...