Thursday through Saturday is a complete blur on this new schedule. I work at SMCC until 4 on Thursday and then have until 3 pm Friday to make lesson plans for two classes on Saturday. There's a bunch of deli time worked into Friday and Saturday as well. I am not terribly good at keeping focused as I bump from one type of job to another. Today, Sunday, I ended up sleeping for the first half of the day because I was exhausted. It's not a bad thing, but it is a different thing. Throughout the three days I have been thinking heavily on the Peter Madden lecture that I saw on Thursday before my illustration class.
Peter Madden is the maker of "One-of-a-Kind Artist's Books, Printmaking, and Alternative Photography." In his lecture on Thursday afternoon, he discussed his collections, obsession with traveling, and his fascination with hand bound books similar to the Book of Kells. It was fascinating to see his methods of conceptual collage, as he worked metal, wood, canvas and paper into a variety of different shaped and sized books. As I was sitting in the audience, it dawned on me that two projects that I have been trying to figure out need to be books. I am sure that anything that I do will look nothing like Madden's work, but I definitely needed the catalyst. The one project involves twitter friends and analog communication and the other is for a poet that I am trying to finish sketches for. Both projects are rather in the formative stages, so I will share when I have a little more work done on each.
I also received news on Thursday that I was rejected from the show that I applied to in Brooklyn. Admittedly that's not really a big deal, but whenever that happens I usually start looking hard for more things to do. You have to keep busy and you need to find places to put your work. It has to happen or nothing will ever come of any of this. As usual I spent the better part of Friday morning looking for projects to apply to. I applied to several places for shows but also found some interesting projects to participate in that required no applications. One of these was
Papergirl Belfast. The idea of the project is amazing. Works on paper, reproductions, photographs, anything that can be rolled up into a small tube is accepted, put in a tube and handed out by people on bicycles with messenger bags full of art. This sort of interventionist approach is something that I want more out of my artwork, and so I had to participate. Here's the info.
I submitted a series of xeroxed copies of a piece that you may remember. I signed each of my pieces with the robot signature in the lower left corner and printed out the address to my new website, which is still partially in the works but hopefully this gets me off of my butt so it gets done, on the back.
Running from job to job and having a ton of downtime during studio classes has enabled me to get a bunch of work done in sketchbooks even if I am not as capable of being home painting. I suppose in the end this is equally as helpful. Once I sit down to paint I already know what is going on. Good all around. Here are a couple pieces of late.
Lastly, while thinking about books and publishing, I started to think of working on an old project that never really materialized. I also realized that all of my more serious work fits under this umbrella. Mansruin was an old idea that I came up with the first time that I lived in Portland, ME, but I thought that it needed to be too pedantic in topics. Now I realize that my recent works which do not feature creatures all are in a category that fits in the Mansruin style. Here's an image of the cover and a work in progress drawing of one of the interior pages.
Rad. Zines. I am pretty happy with how work is going right now. I feel like I'm on the brink again. I also feel like I'm going a bit mad, but then Ginsberg's got me covered, "I saw the greatest minds of my generation destroyed by madness...." I can only hope that before I go mad I was starting with something great. Let's be great.
Peace
-Mike
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