Of a Tree a Squirrel and Me.

I am very excited to show you folks the development of this new piece! It is hitting some of the same notes as the head installation but feels more significant to maintaining my identity as an artist over the last decade. All of the seriousness of art theory and and art classes, intent and content and practice have me thinking, and what they have me thinking about is joy. I've been making artwork for years, and I think the reasoning behind it was best put by a zine writer that I once read. "We Were Ugly, so We Made Beautiful Things". This is not to say that I think I was ugly, but rather to say that I felt edged out of the norm as a young adult, and that has forever shaped who I have become. I am rather a soft personality, and I love to make people laugh and smile. I do have "intellectual" things to say at times, but it is good to sit back, and realize, that I make things to help you my viewer and me, myself, to communicate, and hopefully to share a laugh, or a smile.

So now, after that preamble it might look like I am trying to pull the wool over your eyes while I make a piece with no substance. Not true. I think this one is going to be great, and has a lot of inside meaning to me, which I've determined over the past six months of school, never really needs to be shared, because you will read it how you will read it, and I don't want to mess that up. Everything means something different to somebody else.

So without further ado, here is the original sketch:

In keeping with the shapes from the last semester I want to use the different panels as different textures in a painting. I have been really into these textures but at the same time have no desire to re-create textures using a paint brush. It is more interesting to me to obtain the textures in a found material.

The tree does look a little different than in the sketch, but I've been thinking of the actual production of the pieces as a little more liquid, so that doesn't really bother me that much. I think that I am attempting to approach a little of Barthes' concept of Greek Rarus, or the concept of using chance and dispersion together to enhance the art making and viewing process.

And here is the squirrel that I carved. I am very excited to be doing a little bit of this again. I don't think that I have worked on anything like this since my show for Gallery 070 on Vashon Island. I really like it. Hopefully author and reader agree!

Gotta finish up some Christmas shopping and go see a good friend I haven't seen in a while, then it's back to painting and maybe some late night gift exchange. Have a good holiday!

Peace
-Mike