silkscreen wave cycle process

click on the image. it will open in a new window as an animated GIF showing the layering process

my first oil painting ever

oh yea, it's soooooooooo good!!!

tshirt designs

Since it's the holiday season and everyone is trying to sell stuff I made a revision to the ARTandWATER main page that includes a bunch of thumbnails of several tshirt designs. There are links from there that go to the main tshirt site but it's cool to see them all laid out together for some easy comparison and enjoyment.

A note: no need to buy anything right away unless you find yourself inspired to do so. I am just putting these up for your enjoyment and some possible feedback. The decision to get a tshirt is completely up to you only if you really want one.

psychic tension

What started out as an exersize with equiluminant colors, to discuss vibration, movement, and the diffuculty of seeing, quickly turned into a revelation about the psychic tension of living in an increasingly crowded and complicated world.
Post-modern theory has taught us that “grand narratives”, as a way to organize everything with one giant meta-structure, keep failing and that more organic growth and organization seem to progress at initially disorganized rates. The disorganiztion, the chaos, have patterns (sometimes vague, sometimes strong) that trick us into thinking that we can find an overall pattern and see the organiztion of everything.

Using Jackson Pollacks more (in)famous works of large abstract expressionist paintings as an example, we see that the structure is scattered and seemingly random. But, paint marks are thrown with similar motions as the artist worked around the canvas repeating the action of painting. There is an order within the disorder, but one that cannot be easily explained without the formulas of fractal geometry. I use the familiar splash mark as a sign of this chaotic painting technique and choose to repeat it with the screen instead of my hand. Each repetition is nearly identical to the last so I am free to move the mark in a less ordered fashion.

This freedom allows me to imagine more possibilities. Unfortunately, more possibilities only leads to even more possibilities. This is indictitive of the psychic tension created by all of the luxuries and freedoms that we have in this modern (or “post-modern”?) era. As the western world has moved through a multitude of government organiztions towards finding a perfect solution (“the answer”) we have discovered that one solution might not be the best, and certainly is not the only solution. In deconstruction the reasons why perfetion evades us many people give up and either go to the disco or go shopping.

But, the need to have something still exists. We can only drop out for so long before wanting to fill the void. Today (un)fortunately we have more colors, models, choices as consumers of physical products as well as information so the quest for any kind of truth (or possibilities of truth) is easily distracted by another consumer product.

Many of possibilities exist. Millions of consumer products. Many of ways to spend free time. Many ways to think about what to do next. Many ways to surf the same wave. Many ways to paint the same painting or make the same print. Many colors from which to choose. How do we know what to choose?

I chose through both favoritism, accident, and some color associations with movement and water. I stopped because I ran out of paper.

seeing layers

water drops and lava photograpy

water
http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2007/11/liquid-art-droplet-photography.html

lava
http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2007/11/hawaiian-volcanoes-beauty-terror.html

I think the water looks like glass or ice; some solid form when it's not moving, but you still see the motion in a still frame. Same for the lava flows once they stop moving.

silkscreen whirlpools

John Anderson

John and I were classmates at American University. Take a look at the website he is working on and enjoy the art that he makes.

http://www.johnjamesanderson.com

professor Marie Roberts

I graduated from Fairleigh Dickinson in 1995. While I did not meet Professor Roberts until half way through my undergrad program she had tremendous influence on me as a painter. During the year after my graduation I was allowed to keep studio space on campus (because nobody else wanted to use that leaky, pigeon infested space) and Professor Roberts was happy to provide feedback and criticism when I needed it.

In 1996 she demonstrated excitement about the "return" of the sideshows to Coney Island where her family had lived and worked. The videos (below) tell her story of rediscovery as well as provide a brief history of the Coney Island side shows.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXazC3yCIl0

click on the links and you can watch

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwKip43Nke8

revision

I did as I said in the last post, and printed over three of the six copies to replace teh blue with red. With only one layer of red over the blue, the result is very brown. I left some of those but made a second pull on others to bring more of the red out. Now the colors are more realated and I think the underlying structure comes forward a bit better.